ACADIANA COVID-19 NUMBERS

Room for people during flu season?news 15 patsy douglas has more on how this will impact local hospitals around acadiana reporter intro - we have seen the peak of covid-19 and how it has impacted hospitals around acadiana but now some are afraid that flu season might be worse ...sot - "we already have a hospitalization during the busy time of the year, to add covid on top of that could be really really serious for the community"vo - public health medical director, tina stefanski says i's important to follow safety procedures and continue to wear your mask in public ..

Sot - "we are letting people know now that w're seeing that increase in the number of cases, and we know that hospitalizations and deaths are lagging indicator and so when you see an increase in cases, i's usually followed by an increase in hospitalization, we do't want that to happen, we need to slow things down, so that we do't see that kind of an increase..

" vo - stefanski tells me to make sure that you get your flu shots early sot - "while we are waiting for that covid vaccine, to be released to the community at large which is months away, in the meantime we know we have a vaccine that can help to prevent cases of the flu and for those people who do get the flu, even if they were vaccinated, i's usually a milder case, so uh get your flu shot, and follow those prevented practices, and that what you can do to help protect those healthcare workers and healthcare systems here in acadiana"vo - stefanski says our region is reporting 21% of new positive cases in the state sot - "what we do't want to see if what happens is that um, what has happened again this summer i's repeating, we are repeating what we saw this summer, saw the increases first in the younger population and then it actually spills over and those older individuals who are more likely uh to have severe outcomes, more likely to be hospitalized"reporter tag - stefanski says we should continue to protect our healthcare workers and the community.

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