Hospitals in Montgomery County limiting visitors due to flu epidemic

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Some hospitals in D.C. and Maryland are taking extra precautions in the midst of a deadly flu season as they are limiting who can and cannot visit their facilities.

In Montgomery County, six of its hospitals are not allowing kids under 12 years old to visit. In the District, there are certain restrictions in the majority of hospitals in the city, so people will want to check with their hospital before heading over there with a child or other visitors.

At Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, its emergency room has been so overwhelmed that critical patients in ambulances are being diverted to other hospitals because of an influx of patients being treated for the flu.

"We are just having sort of a higher mortality rate with this epidemic," said Dr. Patrick Murphy, an emergency room physician at Holy Cross Hospital. "It doesn't seem to have been helped by the flu shot."

Similar stories are playing out in other parts of the country. In North Texas, several schools shut down after a high number of students and staff showed flu symptoms.

Some pharmacies are running low on Tamiflu, an anti-viral medication. Intravenous fluids are also in short supply, particularly saline because it is primarily made in Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from Hurricane Maria.

So far, 30 children have died after being diagnosed with the flu. Among the latest victims is 6-year-old girl from North Carolina.

While most people are familiar with the telltale flu symptoms such as a fever, aches, pains, coughing and a runny nose, it can also lead to potentially fatal conditions like dehydration, sepsis and pneumonia.

"If you are starting to feel short of breath and feel like you can't get enough air, that is a reason to go immediately to hospital," said Dr. Murphy. "If you have been running a high fever for a few days in a row and you are starting to feel very weak and tired and you are having difficulty standing up or moving around, then you definitely need to go in at that time."

Dr. Murphy said with this H3N2 flu strain, some patients are experiencing an upset stomach, vomiting, diarrhea - more than the typical cough and cold. They are taking extra precautions at Holy Cross Hospital.

"We do put masks on people when they first come in if they are having any flu symptoms," Dr. Murphy said. "We will put masks on them right away to try and limit their spread of disease to other people … If you are coughing into the air in our waiting room, probably everybody in our waiting room is going to be exposed to that virus."

At Inova Health hospitals in Virginia, they say their system is not restricting visitors at this time.

Doctors say they cannot recommend enough to wash your hands frequently and get those flu shots. Even though they are not as effective, they can help reduce the severity of the symptoms and how long you are sick if you do end up getting flu.