On Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra appealed to the public’s collective sense of civic duty, as influenza, coronavirus and respiratory syncytial virus continue in San Diego County and across the country.
Speaking at an afternoon news conference in San Diego, California’s former attorney general argued that the public will have to reject widespread misinformation, adopt vaccination recommendations and take known and undeniable steps to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses.
While most people become inflamed with one of the three viruses recently constitute what many in the public fitness network call a “triple threat,” some end up with lung inflammation that shortens them breathlessly and requires emergency medical attention.
This resource, Becerra argued, will be one to which the public feels an iron loyalty and a preference to protect.
“Do me a favor, do it also for the fitness heroes who have been running day in and day out for 3 years and are exhausted, they are exhausted, but they are very resilient and will be fit for this winter. “too,” Becerra said. Do it for them so that we don’t lose them, so they don’t leave this profession, so they can motivate others to make these paintings in the future. “
Dr. Wilma Wooten, county public fitness officer, joined Becerra; Dr. Patrick Frias, CEO of Rady Children’s Hospital; County Supervisor Nora Vargas; Nick Macchione, director of the county’s social and fitness agency; Chancellor Pradeep Khosla of the University of California, San Diego; Paul Gothold, San Diego County Superintendent of Schools; and Ana Melgoza, vice president of external affairs for San Ysidro Health. They highlighted projects across the county designed to combat COVID-19 and seasonal flu.
Unlike his Orange County counterpart, Wooten did not take the opportunity Thursday to claim the “triple threat” as a public fitness emergency. In an email, Wooten said his branch is closely following the stage.
Influenza and RSV are most affected in hospital emergency rooms. The county fitness department’s most recent weekly report on respiratory illnesses, released Thursday, said 7 percent of emergency room visits had flu-like symptoms last week, up from 6 percent the week before. Similar percentages are not available for RSV, however, hospitals, namely Rady Children’s Hospital in Serra Mesa, have been experiencing a peak number of cases for weeks.
COVID-19 lags behind, with 3% of local emergency room visits exhibiting coronavirus symptoms in the past two weeks.
However, new coronavirus variants, which in the past caused spikes in hospitalizations across Europe, have now been detected in San Diego’s sewage. The concern, said the county’s lead medical officer, Dr. Eric McDonald, is how the trend will be replaced as winter rolls around.
So far, he noted, much of the infection trend comes from young people and teens who stay home after school but don’t generate enough severe cases to strain the fitness formula beyond the breaking point. The maximum visual effect in the best local schools after the weekend house, with Patrick Henry High School in San Carlos reportedly has part of its student framework with what were thought to be cases of flu and RSV.
“The flu and COVID combined, a month or two later, are going to strain the formula in a way that, you know, we don’t see yet,” McDonald said.
Staying in normal contact with San Diego’s fitness systems, McDonald said Becerra hit genuine fear hard in his speech Thursday afternoon.
“People through the health care formula are just tired; It’s just that you have to go back to the same people over and over again to ask them to dig in, go out and do more, and take more time away from their families. MacDonald said.
Masks remain an apparent but open problem. Public fitness agencies present them in crowded environments, but few (McDonald’s and other public fitness officials) use them.
After Thursday’s news conference, Becerra hesitated about the concept of enforcing a stronger national mandate on mask wearing. Local and state jurisdictions, he said, are in a position to perceive what is needed.
“Obviously, the fact is that masking works,” Becerra said. “But, at the end of the day, public fitness is a state operation.
“We’re helping at the federal level and hope other people will heed the call from their experts in their counties and states to do whatever it takes to not spread those viruses. “
According to the county’s most recent flu vaccination report, the local electronic registry has noticed a slight increase in overall participation in recent weeks. arms. The use of the new “bivalent” vaccine against the coronavirus has remained solid with 30,000 or 40,000 doses administered per week, totaling more than 290,000 inhabitants.
Correction: An overlooked word from Becerra’s quote related to federal protection to prevent viruses from spreading. We apologize.
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