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A ferocious flu “epidemic” has New Yorkers rushing to doctors, hospitals and drug stores — with emergency-room visits up 150 percent over last year, city health officials said yesterday.
“It’s a bad year. We’ve got lots of flu,” said city Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, who noted influenza-related cases spiked from 2 percent of all emergency-room visits for the peak of last year’s flu season to 5 percent this year.
This year’s strain is a nasty one, Type A-H3N2, similar to a bug that stung the city hard in 2004. Type A-H3N2 “tends to be a little more severe,” said Farley, who cautioned, “We’re having our flu epidemic now, and it’s a bad year. So we’re seeing plenty of cases of flu and plenty of people sick with flu.”
City health officials’ observations are in line with national trends reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nationwide, about 6 percent of all emergency-room visits are flu-related.
The nastiness of the outbreak is confirmed by Google, which tracks national flu trends according to the number of times people ask about the flu. Based on that criteria, Google rates the current outbreak as “intense.”
Gov. Cuomo underscored the problem by getting his flu shot during a press conference yesterday. Afterward, state Health Commissioner Nirav Shah gave him a lollipop.
Dr. Farley’s advice: Get a flu shot if you haven’t already. And if you’re feeling woozy or sneezy or otherwise a bit off, stay home and rest.
Only the most severely sick people should seek flu treatment in hospital emergency rooms, Farley said. “For the most part, you’re going to get well on your own, so just stay at home or go to your regular doctor,” he added.
Flu can be deadly for young children, the elderly or people who already suffer from severe illness. This year’s outbreak hasn’t hit historical highs, but doctors and druggists say it’s worse than recent outbreaks.
“It’s been pretty much nonstop,” said Eli Kim, who owns Raysol Pharmacy on Lexington Avenue at East 116th Street.
Kim said there’s a severe shortage of the liquid form of Tamiflu, a prescription influenza medicine often given to children who can’t swallow the capsule form of the drug. “The liquid form of it is just completely out of stock. Nobody has it,” he said.
NyQuil, DayQuil, Sudafed and other popular over-the-counter remedies ease symptoms and may even shorten the time you’re sick by a day or two, but time and rest are the only real cures.
“For the average person who doesn’t have other medical problems . . . staying home and treating the symptoms is going to do the trick,” said Dr. Jay Varma, the city Health Department’s deputy commissioner for disease control.
Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese