Kane County begins flu season with highest rate in six years

Kane County emergency rooms are seeing the very best rates of influenza amongst patients in six years because the flu season begins, officials said.

At 4 of the five hospitals within the county, 15.2% of the emergency room visits are tied to the flu, Kane County Health Department Executive Director Michael Isaacson told Kane County Board members Wednesday.

“Immediately where we’re is significantly higher than what we typically see this time of 12 months,” Isaacson said in regards to the flu. “Persons are apprehensive in regards to the ‘twindemic.’ What are we going to see after people have taken precautions with COVID and now that we’re back and around more people? It is sensible that we might be spreading more viruses and see a potentially elevated 12 months.”

Kane County Health Department officials are meeting with hospitals frequently to debate the elevated levels of viruses including the flu and RSV over the past two months.

“We’re seeing some capability issues where hospitals are having to move younger people farther away because we don’t have the capability locally,” Isaacson said.

The typical variety of COVID-19 cases has decreased to 59 cases a day, but Isaacson said officials are keeping a careful eye on what may occur over the winter months with the coronavirus.

He said COVID-19 activity is probably going higher in Kane County than the numbers indicate on account of people using at-home tests and positive cases not being reported to the health department. The county stays at a low level of transmission of COVID-19 based on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but Isaacson said the transmission level continues to be substantial.

Officials really useful residents receive vaccines for each COVID-19 and the flu and proceed to make use of prevention methods like washing hands continuously and staying home when sick.

The health department also prolonged its contract to run a call center and make contact with tracing for COVID-19 for the subsequent 12 months through KPMG using federal American Rescue Plan funding. The corporate also investigates cases and helps schools contact families during outbreaks of coronavirus.

Around $1.9 million is budgeted for the services for next 12 months.

As soon because the state ends the COVID-19 contact tracing mandate, Isaacson said the department plans to finish the contract, return to an in-house call center and certain spend much lower than the budgeted amount. The county has used KPMG for the service since 2020.

The health department can be monitoring an Ebola outbreak in Africa. No high-risk travelers have been identified within the county, but they’re monitoring six individuals who returned from the world where the outbreak is going on, Isaacson said.

mejones@chicagotribune.com