It seems like just yesterday I was recovering from the flu that I had spent the end of 2017 avoiding, but finally got hit with in January – two days before I was to do a trail run race I might add.

This past weekend, while I didn’t have the flu, still was enough cold-like symptoms to ring in the reality that cold and flu season is here again.

As of Dec. 1, 2018, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), Dallas County has not reported any significant influenza activity.

Dallas County is in the Southwestern District, according to the ADPH.

However, the West Central District just above us has lab confirmed cases within the last three weeks.

Let’s not forget last season when the flu became an epidemic.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported the 2017-2018 influenza season was a “high severity season” with high levels of outpatient clinic and emergency department visits for flu like illness, high hospitalization rates and elevated and geographically widespread influenza activity for an extended period.

Everyone had the flu.

Go to stores, everyone had the flu. Hand sanitizer was literally sold out on the shelves and I guarantee the employees were hoarding it for themselves.

During the 2017-2018 season, flu activity began to increase in November, according to the CDC, reaching an extended period of high activity during January and February nationally, and remained elevated through the end of March. As of Oct. 27, a total of 185 pediatric deaths had been reported to the CDC during the 2017-2018 season. The number exceeds the previous highest number of flu-associated deaths in children reported during a regular flu season (171 during the 2012-2013 season). The CDC reports that 80 percent of these deaths occurred in children who had not received a flu vaccination that season.

Fast forward to now, activity levels in Alabama remain low, 3 percent, which is below Alabama’s baseline, 3.2 percent.

One polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positive specimen was detected in the last three weeks, which was Influenza A, 2009 H1, two flu-like illness outbreaks were reported between Nov. 25 and Dec. 1 and no pediatric deaths were reported during the same time period.

That’s good, but we are just getting started

Be smart this cold and flu season, because being sick throws your life out off the rails. The laundry piles up, meals are not cooked and the homes are not cleaned.

It’s hard to recover from all of that.

Wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze, sanitize regularly and most importantly, isolate yourself if you’re sick.

If you don’t have time to be sick, what makes you think your co-workers, family and friends have time to be sick?