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Dr. Robert H. Hopkins Jr., a UAMS Health internist, provides an assessment of what people can do to protect themselves during flu season.
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Transcript
Steve Barnes:
Hello again, everyone, and thanks very much for being with us. It is that time of year, after all, those months when doctors see their waiting rooms fill up and teachers see classroom attendance go way down. Indeed, that’s the case in Arkansas right now. And in a moment, we will have an update on the flu situation from a medical pro.
The flu and other respiratory viruses. Arkansas’s case rate is high and getting higher. Schools across the state are reporting high absenteeism. Students, teachers and employers are trying to cope with a workforce that is suddenly smaller, owing to microscopic menace. And COVID is still with us. For an assessment of the situation and the outlook, we’re joined by Dr. Robert Hopkins, an internal medicine specialist at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Dr. Hopkins, thanks very much for coming. Welcome back, by the way.
Robert H. Hopkins Jr., M.D.:
Thank you, Steve. Happy to be here.
Barnes:
Well, I’m looking at the — I hope it was under different circumstances, but I’m looking at the statistics from the national clinical organizations. We were a few days ago — Arkansas — high in terms of our case rate. Now we have gone from high to very high. Any surprise on your part?
Dr. Hopkins:
No, it really isn’t, Steve. We’re seeing the same thing. I primarily practice in the office, and we’re getting lots of calls from people who’ve got influenza-like illnesses. Talking to my colleagues who work in the hospital, we’ve got lots of patients in the hospital with influenza, a fair number with COVID-19, and even a few adults in the hospital with RSV. Although, fortunately, RSV seems to be fading a bit. But COVID and influenza are still running wild.
Barnes:
All right, doctor, are these seasonal viruses that you’re encountering now, that the doctors across the state are encountering?
Dr. Hopkins:
Well, influenza tends to be seasonal, although the timing of the onset of that seasonal surge tends to vary a bit from year to year. Last year, we started early, well before Thanksgiving. This year, we started at our usual time around Thanksgiving. While much of the country seems to have peaked out a couple of weeks ago, it’d be starting to trickle down, unfortunately, here in the South, numbers continue to rise.
Barnes:
What’s the regional aspect there, doctor?
Dr. Hopkins:
Well, it’s just interesting that we tend to see influenza rise and fall in different areas at different times. At present, the South seems to have the most increase in influenza disease, although there’s also a fair amount of activity in the D.C. and up to New York area, as well as out to the mountain states.
Barnes:
I’m anticipating you’re going to tell me that this is largely an urban situation — or the spike is in the urban areas — the case rate is higher in the urban areas.
Dr. Hopkins:
We certainly have seen that here in Arkansas and in other areas. If you look at the data from our own health department, the rates are higher in central Arkansas than they are across other areas of the state, although it’s impacting people across the state of Arkansas.
Barnes:
Are we dealing with a variety of microbes or viruses here?
Dr. Hopkins:
We are. The majority of it is influenza and COVID-19, but there’s also RSV. We’ve seen some metapneumovirus, which is a virus we don’t have a vaccine for, and I’m sure there are a number of other viruses that are causing some of the outpatient illnesses. Fortunately, those are less likely to cause people to be sick enough to end up in the hospital.
Barnes:
The demographic spike that I’m seeing here, doctor, from the data — from the data that I’ve been provided, anyway — from the national organizations and from Arkansas, is the 5 to 17-year-old age bracket. We’re talking about the K-12 bracket, so to speak.
Dr. Hopkins:
Well, you know, children are — I don’t mean this in a negative way, but children are very effective at transmitting viruses from one to another. And so with schools being open, the kids are crowded in there. They’re spending a lot of time in their classrooms or doing lots of other indoor activities, particularly with all the rainy weather we’ve had in the last few weeks. And that contributes to the spread among the school-age population. From there, those viruses go home to their families, from the members of their families to others. And we’ve seen a real drop-off in influenza vaccination rates through the last couple of years. And so you get a combination of low vaccination rates with highly transmissible viruses, we see lots of disease in our communities.
Barnes:
Are you surprised if that slow-down in vaccination participation?
Dr. Hopkins:
No, unfortunately, I’m not. I think a lot of there’s been a lot of hesitancy around the COVID-19 vaccine that has rolled over into a number of other vaccines. I think it’s important that we recognize for routine childhood immunization, generally, the vast majority of people continue to vaccinate, as they should. But vaccination rates for influenza and COVID-19 have been far less than they need to be, and that puts a lot of people needlessly at risk, from small children down to six months of age on through our older adult population.
Barnes:
Well, do you have a message, particularly for parents now, doctor — what vaccines are available? Is there an information gap here?
Dr. Hopkins:
Well, I think the two messages I would get out are, first and foremost, if you’re sick, please stay home. Take care of yourself. Reach out to your health care provider for recommendations for taking care of your symptoms, controlling fever, getting fluids down, and resting. Second, if you have not had your influenza vaccine or your COVID-19 vaccine, the 2023-2024 vaccine that we’ve been using since September and October, please get them. It is not too late. We have at least six more weeks in our influenza season. COVID is still running rampant and I want people to have all the protection from severe disease, as well as from infection that they can get.
Barnes:
COVID never went away. I mean, and I’m looking here, if I have the data correctly, doctor, deaths from COVID in Arkansas last 12-month reporting period were far more deaths, something like ten times more deaths from COVID than from influenza.
Dr. Hopkins:
That’s right. You know, COVID is a bane on our society still. We know that this winter surge of COVID has been one of the worst surges. And we’ve had an opportunity to reduce that with vaccination. But vaccination rates are horribly low. There is still a tremendous amount of misinformation out there. This COVID-19 vaccine we have available is safe. It is effective. I’ve given it to all of the members of my family, have encouraged all the members of my team and every patient that I see, as well as every opportunity like this, to encourage people to get that vaccine. Our flu vaccine, similarly, is safe. It is most effective at reducing severe disease. It doesn’t prevent everyone from getting infected. But if we can reduce the likelihood of you getting sick enough to end up in the hospital, we reduce the likelihood of deaths. And we need to do everything we can to try to keep our society healthy. In flu and COVID-19 both, we see the most hospitalization, the most severe disease in our older adult population, but we also see both of these diseases in healthy adults, in healthy children, even down to healthy small children, kids under two years of age, in particular, are at very high risk for severe flu and COVID-19.
Barnes:
Who is eligible in terms of age demographic, doctor, who needs to be in — at what age is it appropriate for immunization to begin?
Dr. Hopkins:
Immunization for influenza and COVID-19 should start at six months of age.
Barnes:
Six months?
Dr. Hopkins:
Yes. Six months.
Barnes:
Got it. Dr. Hopkins, as always, thanks for coming in, and come back again soon. I hope under nicer circumstances than influenza.
Dr. Hopkins:
Absolutely. And everyone wash your hands and stay away from sick people.
Barnes:
Oh, good. Doctor, thanks very much for being with us.
