Respiratory infection cases rise in Paducah amid holiday season | Health

PADUCAH — Local hospitals and doctor’s offices are seeing an uptick in flu and RSV cases in the region.

Mercy Health – Lourdes Hospital said its offices saw an uptick in flu cases the past two weeks. Baptist Health Paducah said it’s seeing a rise in RSV cases and other respiratory infections.

It’s not just one demographic — the young, old, or immunocompromised. Baptist Health Urgent Care Dr. David Saxon said people of all ages are coming in — but some simple steps can help stop the spread.

Fall break, crowds of Black Friday shoppers, and Thanksgiving made the perfect recipe for sickness to spread.

“During the Thanksgiving week, they were all just like, fevers, up, down, up, down, up, down. I’m giving them medicine, like, constantly, constantly, constantly, but they’re getting better. I sent the twins to school today,” Tasheyrielle White said. 

White said all four of her kids have been sick, but they’re getting over it. She’s taking extra precautions not to get sick herself.

“With the younger three, Lord, it was a lot — everybody wanted to be up under me. I’m like, ‘No, I got to work. I can’t get sick.’ So it was kind of, you know, difficult with the younger three, with all of them being sick at the same time,” White said. 

She’s also going above and beyond to make sure her kids don’t get sick again.

“Keeping their mouth off of stuff. I mean, they’re younger, so they want to put their mouth on everything. Especially that baby, just touching stuff, putting her hands in her mouth after she done touched everything, really, just staying away from germs,” White said. 

Saxon at Baptist Health Urgent Care said respiratory infection cases are up for them: RSV, COVID-19, and flu. To stay healthy, there are a few steps to take.

“General good hand washing. If someone’s that sick, I mean distancing some if you can. Try not to eat or drink after each other. We see that in kids a lot at school,” Saxon said. “So, you know, try to get parents to reinforce to their kids not to do that. And strep throat and other viral infections can spread that way too,” he said. 

And kids aren’t the only ones at risk.

“We see seniors, and this weekend we’ve had a lot of kids. You know, they didn’t, you know, help that all of the clinics were closed, including pediatrics, from Wednesday, you know, through the weekend. So we always get a lot of kids when they’re closed on holiday weekends, a fair number of elderly, and some people were fairly sick, and we’ve seen a few more pneumonias over the last few months,” Saxon said. 

White is making sure to take care of herself too. She shared her “get better” regimen: “Any type of elderberry medicine. I feel like it’s fast working. I do, like, kind of like a tea, lemons, oranges, you know what I’m saying, boil it. Keeps them from not being so congested,” she said.