Republic file photo An exterior view of Columbus Regional Hospital’s sign directing patients to the emergency entrance.
Columbus Regional Health says the flu season “just continues to explode,” with local influenza cases and flu-related hospitalizations reaching their highest levels in recent years.
As of late, there have been between 12 and 15 people hospitalized at CRH due to influenza, including at least one day when 18 people were hospitalized, the hospital said.
“(These are) the highest numbers in flu-related hospitalizations that we’ve seen in recent years,” said CRH spokeswoman Kelsey DeClue.
The rise in flu hospitalizations comes as the U.S. flu season continues to get worse after getting off to an unusually fast start, with federal health officials reporting that flu activity was already high in 45 states — including Indiana — by the end of last month.
Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said U.S. hospitalization rate for flu hasn’t been this high this early since the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
The CDC classified flu activity in Indiana as “very high” during the week ending Nov. 26, the most recent data available Friday morning. State health officials reported 11 flu deaths in Indiana as of the week ending Nov. 26.
The CDC estimated that there had been at least 8.7 million cases of the flu in the United States so far this season, resulting in 78,000 hospitalizations and 4,500 deaths over the same time period.
The annual winter flu season usually doesn’t peak until December or January, but this one began early and has been complicated by the simultaneous spread of other viruses.
Currently, local COVID-19 spread is “rising pretty quickly,” DeClue said. There were 12 people hospitalized at CRH with COVID-19 on Thursday, up from seven on Monday.
One Bartholomew County resident has died from COVID-19 over the past month, according to the Indiana Department of Health.
In addition, local pediatricians previously said they have seen more cases than usual of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is a common respiratory virus that can be serious for infants and older adults.
Local health officials, for their part, are urging people to get their flu and COVID-19 shots. There is not yet a vaccine against RSV although some are in development.
“We’re very much encouraging people to still consider getting a flu shot and the bivalent booster for COVID,” DeClue said. “With this amount of viral spread, we don’t anticipate flu numbers going down soon, so this will be a long season.”
