The Southern 7 Health Department says there’s recently been a big increase in Emergency room visits and hospital admissions due to Flue cases. Some Schools in our area reported seeing attendance drop due to students getting sick, including Mount Vernon, Harrisburg, and Pope County schools.
CARTERVILLE, Ill. (WSIL)-- Illinois health officials are reporting a spike in illnesses across the state. The Illinois Department of Public Health says Covid and RSV are declining, but flu cases are rising.Â
The Southern 7 Health Department says there’s recently been a big increase in emergency room visits and hospital admissions due to flu cases.
Some schools in our area including Mount Vernon, Harrisburg, and Pope County schools reported seeing attendance rates drop due to students getting sick.
The Pope County School District reported closing on January 31st due to various illnesses. The school district’s superintendent says both students and staff were getting sick.
“We had over 40% of all of our students out. And then we also had about 24 staff members out that day too. And that's anything from custodians to teachers to individual aides, classroom aides,� Fritch said.
Fritch says they are back in session and have most of their students back.
“Today we're down to 57 out. I think we only have 10 employees out today with sickness. So much better compared to last week at this time,� Fritch said.
He says over the weekend they had some staff disinfect the school as a precaution.
“But out of my five custodians, I actually only had two that were healthy and able to be here. So those two custodians that we had, we actually reverted back to our Covid days, and we used our sprayers and our disinfectant that we had during the Covid years,� Fritch said.
And over in Harrisburg, as a precaution, Superintendent Amy Dixon says they had an early dismissal last Friday and brought in an extra custodian to sanitize the schools.
“We've been in touch with the health department daily. They've been sending us some information that we can push out to try to remind students to stay home if they're feeling ill,� Dixon said.
She says they had 29% of their students out of school last Thursday, but she does not think they will have to cancel classes due to illnesses.
“And we try really hard to keep our students safe. But closing school is a big deal, and we try not to close, if at all possible,� Dixon says. “We have a lot of families that depend on us to be open while they're working. And we have a lot of students that get two warm meals from us throughout the day.�
Up north, Mount Vernon High School Superintendent Chad LeCrone says they have also had students call out due to being sick.
“We've definitely seen an uptick in the number of cases as far as students being out sick and even for multiple days that we've noticed as well, probably within the last week to 10 days,� LeCrone said.
LeCrone says if your child is feeling ill with a fever, to call them out of school. Shawnna Rhine with the Southern Seven health department says anyone should contact their doctor if they feel sick.
“You can get tested. And if you're early enough in your virus, for example, if it's the flu, you can start getting treatment within the first 48 hours. With Covid, it's anywhere within the first five days or so,� Rhine said.
Rhine says it's not unusual to see an increase in flu cases during this time of year, but people can take steps to prevent it.
“We just want you to get your flu shot, your COVID booster, and your RSV shot somewhere. So if you are able to get vaccinated, we encourage you to go ahead and do so,� Rhine said.
Due to the rise in Flu cases, the Southern 7 Health Department hosted several pop-up flu vaccine clinics on Wednesday in Anna and Mounds.
Rhine says the Southern 7 is encouraging people to keep up with the Seasonal Respiratory Illness Dashboard, which can be found on the Illinois Department of Public Health page.
She says it lets people know about the trends in Illinois for hospitalizations.
