Seasonal influenza has continued this week to put a dent in the waiting rooms of local health providers, pushing patient volumes higher than they have ever been in recent memory.
Florida, like most of the country, is experiencing a busier than normal flu season that has already claimed the lives of two children. The viral infection has rapidly spread across the state in the last three weeks, prompting some large public hospitals to limit children younger than teens from visiting except for medical reasons.
Halifax Health announced this week that it was discouraging children under age 13 and people with flu-like symptoms not seeking medical care from coming to the hospital. UF Health Shands hospital in Gainesville took a similar stance Tuesday.
The decision is a form of risk reduction as young children are one of the age groups most at risk of spreading the flu, said Debra Johnson, director of infection prevention for Halifax Health. In the last week, about 21 percent of the 850 people tested at the public hospital had the flu.
“We decided to do that because there has been an increase in individuals under that age with positive flu. There’s just a little bit of a higher risk with kids,” Johnson said.
“This is a suggestion,” she added. "It’s not written in stone by any means.”
No such decision has been made at any of the Florida Hospital facilities in Volusia and Flagler counties, a hospital spokesperson said. However, Florida Hospital Centra, the organization’s chain of urgent care clinics, continues to see escalating patient volumes involving people with flu-like symptoms.
Since the last week of December, weekly patient volume grew by 133 percent for individuals with symptoms of flu at Centra Care offices in Orange City, DeLand, Daytona Beach and Port Orange.
Dr. Tim Hendrix, medical director for Florida Hospital Centra Care, said every age group is represented in the data but it was unclear how many of the cases skewed toward one group or another. About 12.5 percent of the patients Centra Care is seeing are for the flu compared to 7.5 percent in 2009 when H1N1 was prevalent, he said.
“Just in the last few days that percent has gone up to 16 percent just in the last two days,” Hendrix said. “It is a bad season; the numbers are supporting that.”
Statewide, there have been 34 new outbreaks reported to the Florida Department of Health during the second week of the year, bringing the total number of outbreaks involving two or more cases of flu to 107 this season.
The majority of the outbreaks occured in places where children and the elderly congregate — the two demographics most at risk for complications — like nursing homes and day care centers, the health department said.
At least one assisted-living facility in Volusia reported an outbreak where 13 residents and five staff members had flu-like symptoms. Three people were treated at local emergency departments and another three were hospitalized because of the illness.
“Here in Florida we started out with just some sporadic flu,” Johnson said. “But in three weeks it increased to being more regional and then it became widespread.”