It has not proved to be an auspicious new year in terms of the health and comfort of many people living on this island. With the exception of just a couple of days since Christmas, there have been persistently heavy and chill winds. In the midlands, west and north-west there have been extensive floods, described by some seasoned observers as the worst in living memory. And there has been (for the first time in many years) a significant outbreak of influenza, compounded by a seasonal upsurge of different viruses causing respiratory and other symptoms of unusual severity. At a time when many people might have been expecting a period of respite after the Christmas and millennial celebrations, they have instead been subjected to further stress by bad weather, appalling flooding of homes, farms and highways, and illnesses which might be classic influenza or just debilitating but potentially less serious viral illnesses.
For those in the midlands and west whose homes have been inundated, whose farms have been flooded and whose highways have been rendered impassable, only time can offer relief: flood waters must find their own ways of subsiding in their own time. Sympathy and support from neighbours and public services can offer only some amelioration of the victims' stress. Time will also be needed to take the pressure off the medical services since, as far as can currently be estimated, the outbreaks of influenza and the other viral infections may well increase before they subside. Already, hospitals in all parts of this island are reporting severe pressure on their out-patient departments and some of the larger institutions have had to curtail planned admissions to create bed space for those whose respiratory infections have proved severe enough to merit emergency hospitalisation. Some of the health service pressure can be relieved by those members of the public who experience flu-like symptoms. There is little or no sense in joining the lengthening queues in hospital out-patient departments just to be told, after hours of waiting, that one has influenza or some other severe virus infection causing the sore throat, the cough, the chills or fever or whatever else that can best be treated by a few days in bed, some paracetamol or other pain-reliever, and plenty of warmth and fluid intake. Such symptoms of themselves should hardly require even a visit to an over-stressed family doctor when a few days of rest in bed can see the symptoms off without medical advice.
But those whose health is already impaired by significant long-term illness or just by old age, those for whom a bout of classic influenza can pose a serious threat to life itself, should certainly consult their family doctors in the first instance and take whatever expert advice is offered. Most of them will already have been advised to beware the threat of influenza and many will already have been given the relevant protective immunisation shot long before last Christmas. The current influenza outbreak is being caused by a sub-type of the influenza virus against which the currently available vaccines afford protection. And those other people who are not at any particular risk should, if their symptoms persist or worsen while taking bed-rest and pain-relievers and fluids, certainly check with their family doctor in case some further infection has complicated the picture.