Make a Resolution to Wear a Mask & Get Vaccinated

Why is anyone surprised at the high level of disease everywhere in the country? How about mandating masks and vaccines instead of allowing careless people to continue infecting others?  The apathy is stunning -- and dangerous.

A trifecta of viruses in the D.C. region has health officials worried

"Health-care experts say the rise in cases is due to a variety of factors.

"Attitudes about social distancing have relaxed considerably since the earliest days of the pandemic, when thousands of people per day were infected by the coronavirus, many of them dying before vaccines became widely available.

"Also, relatively few people have received the latest coronavirus booster shots that are geared toward the several highly transmissible omicron subvariants in circulation. About 17 percent of the U.S. population has received the new, bivalent booster shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"A new strain of the coronavirus, JN.1, is also feeding the surge, although health experts don’t believe it causes more severe illness than other strains. JN.1 is the most common variant in the United States.

"The yearning to interact with one another has made people susceptible to those subvariants and influenza A, a strong strain of flu virus that has joined the more mild H1N1 strain in spreading through the region.

"'Over the past couple of years, we’ve sort of forgotten how serious an infection of influenza really is,' said Andrew Pekosz, vice chair of the W. Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology & Immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"He predicted the cases of respiratory ailments in the region will continue to rise over the next several weeks, following the patterns of other areas of the country that tend to see such infections rise first.

"'This is another reminder that covid is still around. Influenza is still around. And with RSV, we’re just getting over the peak season. All these infections really are expected to be around for most of the winter.'"

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Well, I for one haven't forgotten how serious flu and COVID are. If you have a "yearning to interact with others", I recommend interacting with your doctor and pharmacy, and get your flu shot and COVID booster!