Since the start of the current flu season, 海角换妻 has had 12,000 flu cases and 153 hospitalizations for the illness. The state Department of Public Health confirmed the first death of a resident in New London County due to influenza this season.
In fact, 海角换妻 has the highest number of flu cases in all of New England, according to from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and preliminary data from the .
Statewide, 3,296 flu cases were reported in the week ending Dec. 3. There were 23 hospitalizations.
鈥淭he numbers are going to get worse,鈥� said Dr. Ulysses Wu, an infectious disease specialist at Hartford Hospital. 鈥淎nd so what we鈥檙e seeing is an early rise. Influenza will peak typically mid-February, early February. I think it鈥檚 going to peak earlier, possibly sometime in late January.鈥�
Wu said several factors were to blame.
鈥淥ur vaccination rates for influenza are low,鈥� he said. 鈥淚f you go out and about, you can see that masking is fairly limited at this point. We haven鈥檛 had a lot of influenza, there鈥檚 not a lot of robust immunity against influenza to begin with. That鈥檚 why we鈥檙e seeing rates that we haven鈥檛 seen since 2010.鈥�
He urged people to mask up indoors, pointing to two years of low infection rates.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have RSV, we didn鈥檛 have influenza last year,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have even so much as a lot of rhinovirus that was circulating. So if you鈥檙e indoors in an unknown situation where you don鈥檛 know everybody, maybe you should wear a mask. If you鈥檙e outdoors, you are going to be fine.鈥�
Correction: The number of reported flu hospitalizations was reported incorrectly in an earlier version of this story. There have been 23 hospitalizations, not 32."
