Chicago doctors urge residents to get flu vaccine amid rise in cases
CHICAGO (CBS) – The flu has landed more people in the hospital nationwide this year than it has in the last decade.
That was the concerning message from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday.
CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey has been digging into the flu cases in Chicago which show hospital systems across the area seeing surges.
Hospitals like the University of Chicago have seen a very early rise in cases and while hospitalizations are not as bad here as they are in other parts of the country, doctors are warning it will only get worse if residents don't take the right precautions.
The University of Chicago is seeing it.
"November hospitalizations are higher than what they have been in the past," said Dr. Emily Landon, of the University of Chicago Medicine.
So is Northwestern Medicine Immediate Care.
"We're seeing an increase in the number of positive flue tests within the immediate cares and the outpatient setting," said Dr. Sindhu Aderson, the medical director of Northwestern Medicine Immediate Care.
Loyola University Medical Center is also seeing the rise in cases.
"Right from the beginning of October, our Loyola numbers show an uptick in flu, and a big rise in the last couple of weeks," said Dr. Jorge Paiva Parada, an infectious disease staff physician at Loyola.
Several other hospital systems across the Chicago area told CBS 2 they're also seeing a spike as well. And even if they're not seeing a rise in the need for flu-related hospital beds, they worry that will come soon.
The CDC is urging people to get vaccinated.
"Right now, we're not seeing as many flu vaccinations happening, and that likely is maybe the driving force to current uptick that we're seeing right now," Aderson said.
The agency is offering to assist states that may need additional support.
Flu cases were down significantly during the pandemic.
"It's not that [the flu] went away," Paiva Parada said. "We just didn't transmit it as much, and we didn't transmit it as much because we took more precautions. And so the same thing is true. Now, if we take more precautions, we'll spread less flu."
Dr. Landon, of the University of Chicago, also said another reason is that studies have shown that our immune systems don't work as well after we've contracted COVID-19.
"That means that our immunity to things like influenza, RSV, other colds and other things that are going around isn't as good as it was before," she said. "To a certain degree, you might say that people are somewhat immunocompromised after they've had COVID for a period of time."
So what can you do now?
Doctors across the Chicago area are urging people to get the flu vaccine and also to remember some of those social distancing rules that we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic.
And yes, that even means wearing masks in public again.
