PORT TOWNSEND — Dr. Allison Berry, the public health officer for Clallam and Jefferson counties, shared updates on influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, COVID-19 and avian influenza, as well as changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website in her monthly update to the Board of Jefferson County Commissioners.
“We are still deep in winter virus season,” Berry said Monday. “We are continuing to see influenza activity in our community. After a couple of weeks of decline, we are seeing influenza on the rise.”
The very young and the elderly are the most vulnerable populations for severe outcomes from the flu, Berry said.
“Right now, influenza is particularly affecting our young people,” Berry said. “We’re seeing a lot of flu in our schools and a lot of flu in kids generally.”
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) rates have elevated, Berry said.
“It’s been a much milder year than we’ve seen in prior years as far as severe outcomes like hospitalization and emergency department visits,” she said.
Berry said the health department is crediting the improvement to increased rates of vaccination.
“RSV can still make you really sick,” she said. “It can still make you have high fevers, especially for kids, have coughs and trouble breathing. We are starting to see more circulation of RSV among young people right now.”
There are no at-home tests or specific treatments for RSV. It’s all supportive care, Berry said.
“The main thing we worry about with RSV is shortness of breath,” Berry said. “If you see a kid who’s showing increased work of breathing, you’re seeing them use their muscles to breathe, that’s a moment that you really want to go ahead and call their doctor, get them in to be seen.”
COVID-19 has been relatively mild this winter, Berry said.
“Now’s a good time to remember the things that we can do to keep ourselves healthy,” she said. “Stay up to date on your vaccines, which means an influenza vaccine and a COVID-19 vaccine for any of us over the age of 6 months, an RSV vaccine for those who are very high risk.”
Berry defined those categories as newborn infants entering their first RSV season, up to 8 months of age, and those older than 70, or 65 with underlying conditions.
In an email, she also recommended the vaccine for some high-risk children up to 19 months, immunosuppressed children, kids with severe lung diseases and indigenous children.
Berry advised that the community at large might consider masking in large indoor gatherings.
“Definitely stay home when sick,” she said. “Remember things like RSV and even COVID in many people can look like just a cold, but for those at high risk, can be very severe.”
Berry said avian influenza is relatively stable right now.
“We have seen 67 cases in humans across the United States; none are currently in Washington state,” Berry said. “We have had no cases in humans in Jefferson County. Currently, we have no known dairy outbreaks in Washington state and no known poultry outbreaks as well.”
Avian flu is primarily an animal virus at this time, Berry said.
“We continue to see it spread in wild bird populations, which means it can affect your poultry, if you keep poultry at home,” she said. “The best that you can do is to keep those wild birds and your poultry separate as much as you can.”
Avian flu is a concern for outdoor cats, which could spread the virus to people if they’re infected, Berry said.
“If you have an outdoor cat, now would be a time to consider limiting the range that they can explore outside of your house,” Berry said. “We have unfortunately seen cats get avian flu from eating dead wild birds. Avian flu is very, very severe in cats. We worry about the risk of potentially getting from cats to people.”
Federal concerns
“A lot of recent executive orders have affected the public health sphere,” Berry said. “One of the ones that worries me is over the weekend the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) took down a large amount of information off of their website. Specifically, webpages that dealt with gender, that dealt with reproductive health, that dealt with guidance around treating sexually transmitted infections or getting vaccines. Very concerningly, took down their resources on the prevention of domestic violence.”
The federal agency has scrubbed information from data sets, Berry said.
“We saw that large-scale data sets were scrubbed of any reference to transgender people,” Berry said. “Even webpages that used to say LGBTQ now just say LGB. I just want to acknowledge that that’s happening and it is deeply concerning, especially if you belong to any of those marginalized groups.”
Removing data of transgender individuals from federal data sets will affect the possibility of doing good research moving forward, Berry said.
“At the local level, we are separate from the federal government,” Berry said. “We don’t have to scrub our webpages. We don’t have to take anything down.”
Berry said the public health office does not answer to the feds and will continue to work to provide accurate information without influence of political leanings.
“It is deeply concerning to see scientific agencies getting rid of data because it doesn’t match the worldview of the current political leadership,” Berry said. “Science and politics are supposed to be firmly separated things.
Berry said before the current administration took office, epidemiologists across the country rapidly downloaded information from the CDC website. She said she expects universities will stand up some of the information, making it available to researchers moving forward.
“We’re going to work very hard at the local level to make sure that our people in Jefferson County and Clallam County continue to have access to accurate information that isn’t affected by politics,” Berry said.
In addition to county public health efforts to bolster the provision of good information, Berry recommended the Public Health Agency of Canada as a good source for information.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com
