WASHINGTON — Flu season has officially started in Maryland.
The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has announced the first confirmed case — an adult on the Eastern Shore who was hospitalized but has been released.
There is no official word yet from Virginia, but local health departments in the central coastal part of the state reported an outbreak among school-aged children last month.
Everyone older than six months is urged to get the flu vaccine, with the exception of children with extremely severe egg allergies. Adults with such allergies have access to a new vaccine that isn’t manufactured using eggs, but it has yet to be cleared for kids.
For more than a month, most of us have been back to school, back to work and back to getting a cold.
Dr. Jeff Dubin, who works in emergency medicine at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, says it’s the time of year when the sneezing, aches, fever and chills hit.
“With viral infections, when people are inside more, that’s when you’re more susceptible to transferring germs from one person to another,” Dubin says.
Making matters worse, while we’re not sick enough to call in to work, he says, we share our budding cold symptoms when we get there.
“We spread these germs amongst ourselves very easily. The small things you can do to prevent from getting other people sick is going to go a long way for folks,” Dubin says.
SickWeather, an app which aggregates posts on social media looking for keywords we share when we’re sick, says the Washington area is experiencing fever, allergies and cough.
When you’re starting to feel symptoms is when Dr. Dubin says it’s time to go back to basics. Wash your hands, hydrate, contain your cough and rest.
Learn more about cold symptoms versus flu symptoms at the Centers for Disease Control’s website here.
WTOP’s Paula Wolfson contributed to this report.
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