Here’s how to prepare for this cold and flu season
Here are some ways to prepare for this cold and flu season as four illnesses currently circulate the country.
Five years ago Monday, someone was identified with COVID-19 for the first time on American soil.
In the years since, 1.2 million Americans have died from the virus, and more than 7 million worldwide.
On Jan. 20, 2020, laboratory tests confirmed that man in his 30s who had recently returned from Wuhan, China, was infected with the novel coronavirus, which hadn’t yet been named.
The chaos and fear that would unfold couldn’t be foreseen at the time, but they would mark the start of a period marked by uncertainty and public health transformation.
Where was the first confirmed COVID case in the U.S.?
The first laboratory-confirmed case of novel coronavirus in the United States was diagnosed in Snohomish County, Washington, about 12 miles north of Seattle, less than two months after the first case was publicly reported in central China.
The Washington patient has still yet to be identified, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did say at the time that he was a 35-year-old man who had returned from a family trip to Wuhan, a city of nearly 14 million people, where the virus was first discovered. That same day, the CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center in response to the outbreak.
He was treated at the Providence Regional Medical Center just outside Seattle in Everett, Washington. USA TODAY reported that the patient experienced symptoms of cough, fever, fatigue and diarrhea before developing pneumonia. He was released from hospital care on Feb. 3, 2020.
Although his was the first confirmed case in the U.S., the virus probably was already spreading undetected here.
COVID-19 in 2025: What’s it like?
COVID-19 doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon despite advancements in vaccines against the virus.
“The virus is here and it’s here to stay. What has changed dramatically is the case severity,” Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told USA TODAY.
In 2020, a telltale sign that you’d gotten COVID-19 was the unexpected lost of taste and smell, as well as a fever and cough. Today, the symptoms may resemble other common seasonal illnesses.
“The symptoms are virtually indistinguishable from those of the flu and other respiratory viruses,” Sax said. “Some cases are so mild that people would not even think about testing themselves” for COVID-19.
Deaths from the virus have been on the decline since early 2022 after a massive spike in cases and deaths, according to data from the CDC. But people are still getting infected.
Free rapid at-home tests are now the go-to, and since the federal government started a program for Americans to order at-home tests, more than 900 million have been distributed through COVIDtests.gov, where Americans can still request up to four free tests.
Tests also are available at local retailers or online.
WastewaterSCAN, which tracks levels of various pathogens in sewage, found high COVID-19 levels nearly everywhere they looked across the country as of early January, though levels were not as high as the peaks last winter or in August.
Contributing: Adrianna Rodriquez and Grace Hauck
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=67955e660b114e6e9e805c5e2a05adbb&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fnation%2F2025%2F01%2F20%2Fcovid-19-five-years-first-case-2025%2F77744363007%2F&c=8402225472604487799&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2025-01-19 20:05:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
