After slow start to season, flu hits county

After a quiet start to the flu season last October, 2020 has brought a fair amount of influenza B and recently influenza A to Jefferson County.

According to Public Health Supervisor Karen Wandel, their public service announcements on the county radio station have encouraged vaccination, staying home while ill, and seeking medical care as necessary.

"We are now beginning to see some influenza A which can be more severe than flu B. Although we've had over thirty flu cases reported in the past month, none of those have been hospitalized," she said. "In Montana our flu activity can peak as late as March and stretch into April. Because of that, vaccination is still an option. Often one strain of flu is more prevalent in the early flu season. A different flu virus will then start working through the population as the season progresses. If you have already had the flu this season, there's still a chance you will be exposed to influenza A sometime before the end of the season."

The newest coronavirus: 2019 nCoV

The newly discovered virus which has sickened over 17,000 people worldwide called the 2019 novel (new) Coronavirus (2019 n-CoV ) is being taken very seriously. Since its recognition in late December in Wuhan, China, it has spread to 23 countries, but remains the largest burden in China which has approximately 99% of confirmed cases and all but one of the 361 deaths according to the World Health Organization. China is racing to build new hospitals to care for the many afflicted by this virus. The U.S. has eleven confirmed cases, two of those contracted from persons who had been to Wuhan, examples of person to person spread. Nonessential travel to China is now being discouraged until further notice.