BROOKINGS Rates of summertime illness including new subvariants of COVID are on the rise.
Nationwide weve seen an increase in COVID positivity and in Brookings County, Bunny Christie, infection preventionist at Brookings Health System, said. In the hospital, we have actually had a very steady increase of inpatients and people coming into the emergency room to be tested and treated.
She said the hospital easily has sufficient capacity to handle the increase.
We are licensed 49-bed occupancy over at the hospital, Christie said. We absolutely have availability in our beds.
The upswing in cases has been caused by two new types of the Omicron variant.
Omicron has two subvariants that are very popular right now and that are making up the majority of the infections that were seeing the subvariant FLiRT and the subvariant LB.1, Christie said.
She said those subvariants feature slightly different spike proteins, enabling the virus to evade antibodies.
Its more communicative, right? So it doesnt take as many viral particles as it used to, to get a lot of people sick. But as far as the actual signs and symptoms go, theyre about the same, Christie said. What were seeing though is that more of the symptoms are very allergy-like, which has been problematic because weve had kind of a bad allergy season so far this spring and then into the summer.
She said if people are feeling unwell, they should find a way to get tested.
The best thing to do if youre not quite sure if its allergies or not is to definitely test. I know that down at the county emergency management office, they have kits available still free to the public. There are kits of course for purchase at just about every pharmacy, Christie said. If youre really unsure about allergies versus other respiratory illness or COVID, of course the clinics can also take care of that testing for you.
She said they expect the next round of COVID vaccines to be available in September or October.
Whats really frustrating, at least for me in healthcare, is that we have people who knowingly are ill with COVID, and theyre still going about their daily activities and really not respecting their neighbors, Christie said. When youre not feeling well stay home. And it might not be COVID, it might be something else, but nobody wants that, right? Nobody wants to be ill.
COVID isnt the only illness circulating locally. In late June, the South Dakota Department of Health confirmed the presence of West Nile virus in mosquito pools in Brookings County, and the states first human case of West Nile this year was reported July 11 in Beadle County.
Its just a little bit early in the season, but not unusual when weve had so many mosquito hatchings and then all of that moisture and rain, Christie said. Brookings County has not had a confirmed positive case. There might be people who dont feel well that are being tested, but nothing has been confirmed. But we do have some positive mosquito pools, and so that means that there are definitely mosquitoes out in Brookings County that have West Nile.
She said most people infected with West Nile wont experience worse than a light fever, headache, body aches, or a rash. Unlike COVID, West Nile doesnt pass from human to human it requires a mosquito bite.
And it only takes one bite. You dont have to have several bites to contract West Nile, Christie said. Some people will start ending up with more severe infections, and thats definitely when they want to come see their doctor. And those are like high fever, stiff neck, sometimes people will become disorientated or theyre having some sort of eye issue or vision issue. And we definitely want them to come in and be tested.
She said the best prevention methods are wearing long clothing, using a bug spray with DEET, and avoiding times of day when mosquitoes are most likely to be out.
We know that mosquitoes come out at dawn, they come out at dark, and then of course right before sunset they like to come out, Christie said. If you can stay indoors at some of those peak times like dawn and dusk then of course youre going to help reduce the amounts of times to potentially be bit.
Because the mosquitoes will be sticking around until the first hard frost, Christie wishes the best of luck to the city crews engaged in repeated ground-fogging efforts.
I would definitely want to put all my money down on the city employees who are helping us by fogging and spraying, Christie said. But every time we have a lot of rain and a lot of opportunity for mosquitoes to hatch of course theyre going to get the jump on us for a few weeks until were able to catch up and do some fogging.
Email Jay Roe at [email protected].
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