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G.R. Hospitals Urge visitors to keep germs at bay

Photo of a person wearing a mask
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“Basically, we don’t want you to come to the hospital and visit if you’re feeling ill and have a fever or respiratory symptoms, mainly because we don’t want you to spread those diseases to our vulnerable, in patient population.”

Dr. George Fogg, is a Pediatric Infectious Disease physician at Spectrum’s Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital.  He says information in a joint news release from the Grand Rapids’ Hospitals is actually standard procedure. But because all the hospitals are very full, and dealing with an abundance of respiratory illness, they wanted to reiterate the seriousness of the problem.

“Our hospitals are filled with people with sort of like, compromised immune systems, people with bone marrow transplants, chemotherapy patients, people with cardiac disease, pulmonary disease and if any of these people get one of these respiratory viruses, it could have severe consequences.”

Dr. Fogg says he understands people wanting to visit their loved ones, adding with today’s technology, you can still see them while keeping germs at bay.

“Try to visit virtually with your family members and you can still see each other and show your presence to your loved ones in the hospital, but not expose others to your germs.”

Michigan is among the hardest hit states for respiratory illness this season. That’s from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Dr. Fogg says they’re seeing high numbers of RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, which can be especially dangerous for the very young and the elderly. They’re also seeing more cases of the flu.  Fogg says it’s not too late to get a flu shot.  In the meantime, officials advise, that you refrain from visiting the hospital if you’re ill-meaning, you should not have a fever greater than 100.4, a cough, sore throat, runny nose or congestion when you visit the hospital.

Jennifer Moss, WGVU News.

Jennifer is an award winning broadcast news journalist with more than two decades of professional television news experience including the nation's fifth largest news market. She's worked as both news reporter and news anchor for television and radio in markets from Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo all the way to San Francisco, California.