RALEIGH COUNTY, WV (WOAY) – As late summer days give way to cool autumn nights, flu season will also heartedly reveal itself.
The viral infection primarily targets the nose, throat, and lungs, allowing it to spread through the exchange of germs.
There are precautions adults can take to protect themselves and their children from getting sick as they start the school year.
Flu season typically runs from October to May. Good personal hygiene is extremely important, including washing your hands with soap and water and using hand sanitizer whenever possible. If you have to cough or sneeze, do that into your elbow. And if you don’t feel well, not just for yourself, but for others around you, stay home.
“Disinfecting is big. Any hard surface you could wipe with disinfectant wipes,” said Nurse Practitioner Sandra Stack. “I always sprayed my child’s backpack with Lysol when she came home, especially when she rode the school bus, because that’s like a little tin can of a petri dish.”
Use Clorox wipes at home to wipe down doorknobs, the telephone, the remote, and your cellphone, as these items don’t typically get cleaned regularly.
“If you’ve been out in public, especially at school, on the school bus, you come home, the first thing you do is grab the doorknob to go into the house, and all the germs that were on your hand transfer — especially if you touch something wet or moist,” Stack said. “And using paper towels versus a hand towel because they get moist and repeatedly you use them over and over.”
According to the nurse practitioner, sometimes she runs an upper respiratory panel on her patients just to be safe.
“For COVID, flu, RSV, and I usually do a strep in there; trying to get all of it knocked out in one place,” said Stack. “You’re likely to see strep throat or anything else before the flu right now, because everybody’s going back to school and staggering in.”
It’s never wrong to err on the side of caution when it comes to wearing a mask again in certain circumstances. If you feel unwell and need to go out, it wouldn’t hurt to take even a small amount of protection. Some people are immunosuppressed.
“Meaning they’ve had a kidney transplant, liver transplant, or a lung transplant. The fact that you wore a mask to Walmart might save someone’s life.”
