Health providers advise caution around illness as holidays approach

Home for the holidays?

Amid a seasonal squall of viruses that doctors say arrived early and may stay late, there are simple ways to improve your chances of staying healthy.

Basic health precautions — wearing a mask when around large groups of people, washing your hands, staying home when sick — are important to keep in mind, especially at holiday gatherings.

“If it’s a huge party, and you don’t know a lot of the people, maybe think about wearing your mask and try to social distance,” said Dr. Brian Lamb, an internal medicine physician with Allegheny Health Network. “You don’t want to have 50 people in a 25-square-foot room. If you’re having a holiday party, can you keep people at least somewhat distanced from each other so that they are not on top of each other?”

Doctors and emergency rooms have been consistently seeing an increase in people coming in sick with the flu, RSV, covid and other upper respiratory illnesses in recent months.

“I call it the perfect storm of upper respiratory viruses. This year, we are just seeing everything,” Lamb said. “This is the first year that we have taken our masks off really widespread in public and restrictions are lifted, so we are seeing a lot of the typical spread of respiratory viruses.”

Covid numbers are beginning to rise again in Pennsylvania, with around 1,935 new covid cases per week, and a total of 13,535 new cases in the past seven days, according to a state report released this week. That’s about a 25% increase from one month ago, when the state was averaging 1,500 new cases per day, but a stark decrease — more than 75% — from one year ago, when there were over 8,300 new cases a week.

Dr. Joe Suyama, chief of emergency services at UPMC Magee-Women’s Hospital in Oakland, added the flu and RSV came earlier in the season this year, leading to a flood of cases.

“There’s been a little bit of a plateau, but with every week that passes, we’ve seen a constant increase in number of flu cases,” he said. “After Thanksgiving, we saw an increase in testing as well as numbers of positivity for covid and flu. Unfortunately, as cyclical as these viral waves are, we do anticipate that gathering, particularly with people who are mildly symptomatic, may cause another spike in cases.”

There’s still time to get your flu shot, Suyama added.

“The fact that we are into the heart of flu season doesn’t mean it is too late to get a flu shot,” he said. “(It’s) anything you can do to prevent yourself for getting sick, particularly if you are at a high risk of progression of illness.”

Dr. Carol Fox, chief medical officer at Excela Health, said this time of year is often a busy time for respiratory illness. She also stressed people should get their flu and covid vaccines, if they haven’t already.

“Once it gets colder and the weather becomes more inclement, people aren’t really able to do so much outdoors,” she said. “When you’re in close proximity to people, generally speaking, we tend to see more respiratory illnesses during the winter. It’s not because infections like the cold, it’s because you’re in closer contact (with) people.”

Pediatric care

As young children and adolescents stay home for holiday break, Cynthia Chew, pediatric nurse practitioner at Pediatric Associates of Westmoreland, advises families to keep health precautions in mind. Her office has been busier in recent weeks with sick children, she said.

“I think that the last couple of years with covid, everybody was very, very cautious, and we have all missed a whole lot,” she said. “This year, it’s more back to how things were before covid, where people aren’t as worried about a runny nose or a cough, which can be scary, especially for our most vulnerable kids, especially kids with chronic medical conditions.”

If anyone in the family is sick with cold symptoms, like a runny nose, sneezing, cough, fever, nausea, vomiting or diarrhea, it’s best to stay home, she said.

“Even if it means missing out on things that they had planned,” she said, “the best way to keep your family and other people safe is to stay home if you are not feeling well.”

Not all illnesses require a visit to the emergency room, she added.

“Things that we (pediatricians) can see are normal coughs and colds, fevers, mild GI bugs or stomach bugs, but things that would require going to the emergency room would be any kinds of dehydration, or a cough that involves trouble breathing, or shortness of breath.”