The COVID wastewater knowledge for the south-of-Boston area has been leaping in the previous few days, whereas total reported virus instances throughout the Bay State ticked down final week.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts well being officers on Thursday launched a number of new dashboards to trace viral respiratory sickness developments within the state. The new dashboards are centered on COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial syndrome (RSV).
“As we experienced to a certain extent last year, we’re heading into a winter where COVID-19, influenza and RSV are likely to co-circulate,” State Epidemiologist Catherine Brown stated throughout a current briefing in regards to the dashboards.
“We all experienced kind of the predominance of COVID for so long, and then last season with the tripledemic, we started to really see what our future might look like,” Brown added. “And it was during that tripledemic where everybody needed information about what was happening with more than just COVID. We needed to look at respiratory diseases more widely.”
The new dashboards embrace the proportion of emergency division visits which can be on account of acute respiratory illness, the present severity of flu and COVID, and the present share of people that have gotten the present season’s flu vaccine and the up to date COVID-19 vaccine.
In the primary dashboard on Thursday, the state reported that 10.2% of emergency division visits this week had been on account of acute respiratory illness.
In the COVID dashboard, the state reported that there have been 3,608 confirmed and possible virus instances final week, which was down 5% from the earlier week’s report of three,808 instances.
Meanwhile, the south-of-Boston COVID wastewater was ticking up in the previous few days. The seven-day common for the area’s virus wastewater went up 49% within the final week. Virus wastewater knowledge has been the primary signal of COVID instances on the group degree.
In current weeks, the Boston Public Health Commission has been urging all residents ages 6 months and older to get their yearly flu shot.
“Getting your annual flu shot should be at the top of your fall to-do list because vaccination is the best way to decrease the risk of severe illness and hospitalization from the flu especially if you are older, very young, pregnant, or have a weakened immune system,” stated Bisola Ojikutu, govt director of the Boston Public Health Commission. “If you are at higher risk and develop flu symptoms, reach out to your health care provider. Treatment may be available.”
The state’s new respiratory sickness dashboards might be discovered at www.mass.gov/info-details/respiratory-illness-reporting.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”