In a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), researchers looked deeper into the lingering symptoms of individuals that have contracted the coronavirus, says Dr. Cliff Martin, Chief Medical Officer of OSF HealthCare Western Region:
“Those individuals who are moderately ill, they really do have the fever and cough even if they don’t have to hospitalized, it actually does linger longer. Thirty-seven percent of those individuals, it is three to four weeks before they start to really fully start to feel back to normal. To contrast that with Influenza, which we know can be quite an unpleasant virus to have, is typically two weeks, so it does linger. Those individuals who are quite ill, those that are in the hospital, as we know, sometimes really attack the body and are quite ill for a long, long time. There has been this lasting neurological component that a lot of people are talking about. They call it the COVID Cloudiness, where just the mental acuity and some of the neurological symptoms seem to really linger,” Dr. Martin states.
Late September, early October is the typical time to get a flu shot, but it is available all year. Dr. Martin reports it is all about timing:
“The longer it has been since you got the Influenza vaccine, when the flu season hits, you do lose some of your immunity that the shot gives you. Say you were to get the flu shot today, and the Influenza really hit the Monmouth area in January, we will see more positive Influenza cases among those folks that were vaccinated than if they got their immunization in October. The timing typically in terms of recommendation and the health systems promoting and pushing it out to patients, is usually late September, early October. We tend to try to coordinate that with the anticipated peak in December, January, early February of the Influenza,” Dr. Martin says.
