How to prepare for the upcoming flu season
REXBURG, Idaho (KIFI) - As fall approaches, many in the medical industry are reminding us to take extra steps to stay healthy as flu season approaches.
A nurse and executive director of quality overseeing the infection control program at Madison Health says preparing for the flu season ahead is an important matter.
"Preparing for flu season is really important as we are starting in these next few months. We know that in the winter we always see a lot more of our influenza and respiratory illnesses. This is our highest risk time," Mikel Barr said.
While the steps to stay safe and healthy during flu season may be familiar, Barr says they are key to staying healthy during flu season.
"A couple of things that we can do to prepare for that, make sure we can keep each other safe, are really our basic infection control guidelines," she said. "We want people to stay home. If you're sick, don't be out and about. Don't be socializing and really just try too hard just to stay home and to keep each other safe and not share our germs. The other thing that we can do is really good hand-washing. Just making sure that we're doing a good job. Any time we're out in public and we're around other people, it's just a good idea to really make sure we're doing a good job of washing your hands."
Another thing Barr recommends is, "making sure that we are up to date with our vaccinations. So it's really important to take advantage of our vaccination program. And we want people to be immunized for influenza. So going to public health or seeing your primary care physician, those are all really important things we can do to make sure that we keep up to date with those annual flu shots."
Barr says while we might be on the backend of the pandemic, it's still important to be wary of it.
"As far as COVID, and it's really important that we take some of those same precautions and we do have our COVID booster program. So it's really important to talk to your your your family practice providers, make sure you're talking to your doctors, go in and talk to them about receiving a booster. Those are really important. And we do have those available now."
Barr says if you do get sick or want to be up to date on your vaccinations the best thing to do is to talk to your doctor.
"It's really important to talk to your your your family practice providers, make sure you're talking to your doctors, go in and talk to them."
Barr gives a final reminder for us to remember as the holiday season approaches.
"We have lots of holidays and activities going on, that we're just really careful about when we're not feeling well. Do not participate in those. Stay home if you're feeling ill and do good hand washing. And we want to make sure that we're not sharing those germs with each other and then just making sure that we're getting our vaccines."
