Illnesses In Amarillo Right Now

It seems like lately there has been a rash of people getting sick in Amarillo. I know over the last month, my family has been dealing with random viruses being passed along from one person to the next.

Right as we finally clear one virus out, another comes in. Now, we're a healthy family, take care of ourselves, yet we can't seem to shake it completely to where the family is healthy at one time.

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Because of this, I started to dig in a bit to see if maybe one virus or another has been running around a bit in Potter and Randall counties. One thing many people don't know about is the wastewater is typically tested in most counties to check for this sort of thing.

It gives the counties an idea of what is happening with illnesses and if they need to do anything in order to help protect the public. Obviously, the most they can do with a lot of these is let people know that something is running high within the county.

After looking over info from the WastewaterSCAN website, I noticed a few different viruses are listed as high in both Potter and Randall counties, which would explain some of the things that have been running through households lately.

INFLUENZA A

Both Potter and Randall counties saw a huge spike of Flu A cases in the middle of March and middle of April. Flu A is one of the more common flu viruses that runs around and seeing two spikes of it over the course of a month is a bit concerning.

HUMAN METAPNEUMOVIRUS

Here's one I had actually never even heard of before. I had to look this one up just to see what the symptoms of it were. It seems like it's very close to a cold truthfully with symptoms of cough, fever, nasal congestion, and shortness of breath according to the CDC. It can progress to bronchitis or even pneumonia.

We saw a spike of it in Amarillo right around the same time we saw the spike in Influenza A, so it's possible they were linked together.

NOROVIRUS

Here's one that is very common. It acts very similar to the flu with symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, stomach pain, and nausea. This is definitely something I feel ran through my house. There was a spike in Amarillo in the second week of March, then it started a downhill trend lasting through March.

However, in April it started a steady climb and as of April 30th, it had continued to rise. This is one we should all be looking out for at the moment.

ROTAVIRUS

Another virus that a lot of people seem to get, but don't really know the name of is Rotavirus. This is one that simply causes diarrhea, so it's one that can cause a lot of dehydration. The good news is you can replace the lost fluids easily. The bad news is it's wildly inconvenient.

This one spiked at the same time as the Norovirus, saw a big drop, but then spiked big again in late April. As of April 30, it's showing a bit of a downtrend.

PARAINFLUENZA

I'll tell you this much. Doing this research introduced me to all sorts of things I haven't heard of, and here's another one. This one is more common in children than anything, and it causes some respiratory issues in them.

It presents very much like a cold with sneezing, runny nose, cough, and sore throat. It can be accompanied by a fever as well. I'm wondering if my two-year-old was dealing with this because it sounds awfully close to some symptoms she had last week.

Much like the rest of them, this one spiked around mid-March and started working down. By the second week of April though, it had begun an upward trend and continues in that direction today.