Flu cases still high

"Our grand total for the whole flu season - since October - is 1,344, but we do see that trending down from the A and B flu from last week, which was at 148 and 68 [respectively]. Slowly but surely we're getting there."

White noted that, compared to last year, the number of flu cases in the county has exploded.

"As of Jan. 22, 2017, we only had 211 recorded cases of flu, so with 1,344 cases, this year's numbers are significantly higher," he said.

The Ste. Genevieve County Health Department is also registering a decline in cases of the flu compared to last week.

"We are slowly decreasing," said Mary Roth, Communicable Disease nurse. "We had 43 cases this week, so we're still averaging around 50 cases a week. Flu is unpredictable. We don't know if maybe another strain is going to pop up later.

"We've still got a couple more months to go of flu season. Our total numbers are over 500 cases - well above what they would usually be. That's high even for a complete total for a flu year. It's widespread, it's severe, it's still out there yet."

In Washington County, there are still "a significant number" of flu cases being reported, according to Sandy Hutchings, nurse supervisor with the county health department.

"There may be a small decline, but not enough to really brag about," she said. "We're seeing a lot of it still. Flu is definitely more prevalent this year. I think the Center for Disease Control and Prevention have compared it to when we had the swine flu - and that's been several years ago. In the state of Missouri, I think there have been seven pediatric deaths."

In Madison County, the health department is still seeing quite a few cases of the flu, especially in school-aged children.

"It has maybe dropped back just a little bit," said Beverly Myers, RN. "Still our highest number of cases we're seeing is in the 5-14 age group, but I'd say we've decreased some from last week's numbers."

In Jefferson County, the number of influenza cases are still high - and deadly.

"We had 324 total cases - 200 with Influenza A and 124 with Influenza B," said Dylan Steigerwald, Jefferson County Health Center epidemiologist. "I would guess that we're going to get a few more cases for last week. That's probably around where it will be.

"We have been seeing our type A cases decrease over the last five or six weeks in a row and our type B has actually been going up. It's what's driving our numbers and keeping them kind of high, I'd say.

"Last week it was mostly evenly distributed among the age groups. Five to 14 year olds are getting the majority of the cases, which kind of makes sense since they're school-aged. We also had one more die last week from the flu."

The health workers at all the county health departments stressed the importance of people getting a flu shot. They all still have vaccine left and encourage anyone who hasn't gotten one yet to do so as soon as possible. Also, be sure to wash hands, cover the mouth when coughing or sneezing and stay home from work if you're sick.