The Latest from Dr. Raymond Kordonowy MD

Respiratory Infections Update

I wanted to update everyone on the Florida COVID-19 status as well as review respiratory illnesses. This week in the office I had two respiratory cases who when tested were confirmed viral but not COVID-19. Following is a very current summary of COVID-19 testing in Florida. One interesting fact is that lately we are running 5.1 % positive case rates BUT only 3.74% are new positive. This means many positives are persons already established positive being repeat tested.

COVID -19 Florida Update.

The bar graph to the left is Death by Date Of Death from COVID-19 in Florida. New cases by day have trended slightly lower through the last 30 days.

This week the two acutely ill and recommended for testing case were positive for rhinovirus. This is a seasonal respiratory virus responsible for approximately 35% of the "common cold" infections. There are 65 million cases of common cold annually! Guess what? These are prevented the same way we prevent COVID-19 spread. Avoid acutely ill persons, hand cleaning, avoid coughing and sneezing exposure. Rhinovirus is spread by aerosol and in 2015, it was the most commonly confirmed pathogen involved in hospitalization pneumonia.

I think the lesson to be learned from this past year's hyper-focused concern about COVID-19 is that it mimics the same disease process and statistics of our historical experience with hospitalized pneumonia. What we need is antiviral therapies and physician willingness to offer treatment for viral respiratory infections especially as point of care testing is allowing rapid and precise pathogen confirmation.

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