News Briefs: Catch up on local, school, and national news

The Christmas Cold
After two years of COVID-enforced social distancing and masks, Americans experienced a decline in flu and other common viral diseases during the 2022 winter season. But this year, with nearly no restrictions in place and more people traveling this holiday season, there’s a predicted rise in viral infections, including influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus — known as RSV in this ‘Tripledemic,’ according to the New York Times.

In the U.S., flu season typically begins to pick up in October and runs through March, peaking sometime between December and February. However, this time of year now faces other viral infections like RVS and COVID-19 as well.

School nurse Stephanie Ptacek recalls her experience dealing with these illnesses and the recent uptick in cases.

“We have started to see more illnesses over the last month or so, as the weather’s getting colder and people have been doing more indoor activities,” Ptacek said.

While the flu is less dangerous than COVID-19 with vaccines having been available for decades, the flu still causes major problems for Americans, with only 58.6% of people getting vaccinated last year, according to the Center for Disease Control. Influenza was responsible for 13 million medical visits, 380,000 hospitalizations and 28,000 deaths in 2019 before COVID-19 was a widespread illness.

Another disease that has seen a significant rise in risk rate is RSV. With no vaccine currently available, this disease is especially dangerous for young children and the elderly, causing an estimated 58,000 children under five years old to be hospitalized from RSV every year and another 177,000 hospitalizations and 14,000 deaths among adults each year in the United States due to RSV, according to the CDC and Prevention.

The CDC’s recommendations of how individuals can help to curb the rapid spread is for people to get vaccinated and put masks back on this winter to help prevent the spread of disease. The standard rectangular surgical masks continue to provide about a 50% decreased risk against disease. But, K95s are still the most effective mask. These provide about an 80% decreased risk against COVID-19 transmission and also decrease the risk of RSV and influenza.

“We’re hearing that some of the primary care offices and pediatricians’ offices are so overwhelmed with patients with viral symptoms that they’re saying people should treat their illness on their own and stay at home,” Ptacek said. “You should not necessarily go to the doctor unless you’re at high risk for COVID-19 of the flu and need medication.”

Leawood Laws

Leawood residents will soon have a chance to weigh in on the city’s pitbull ban in the coming weeks through a survey that will be emailed to randomly-selected Leawood residents. The ban still awaits voting in Leawood, one of the last cities in Johnson County to still have one.

The Leawood city council looks to reassess their “dangerous animals” city code banning the ownership of pitbulls and other similar dogs

According to the National Library of Medicine, these bans are opposed by most animal welfare organizations like the American Veterinary Medical Association because they’ve never been proven to increase public safety. Also, enforcing the ban costs the animal department over $250,000 last year in the kenneling, veterinary care, euthanization and disposal of seized pitbulls.

After the latest vote on overturning the ban ended in a 4-4 split, council members looked into gathering public feedback to help them make a decision. According to councilwoman Lisa Harrison, pushback to the survey is because it could cost the city $8,000 to $12,000 to conduct.

“I have a hard time justifying at least a $10,000 expense on an issue that doesn’t seem to be garnering a lot of chatter from residents at this time,” Harrison said.

Angels of East

SHARE is hosting their annual Angel Tree program to donate holiday gifts to children in the metropolitan area.

The Angel Tree program, started by The Salvation Army over 40 years ago, provides thousands of gifts, toys and holiday food boxes to families in need locally.

The Angel Tree SHARE chairs set up their display in the front office with a tree holding dozens of angel tags on each branch, each representing a local child in need and their gift wishes. Students and teachers pick out tags and buy the gifts to provide for disadvantaged children up to 13-years-old. After they have bought the child’s gifts, they’ll return them to SHARE to be given back to the Salvation Army for distribution.

SHARE Chair of the Angel Tree program senior Caroline Gorman understands the importance of giving back to those in the community, participating in the project every year.

“It’s always good to give back, especially during the holiday season,” Gorman said. “And this is doing something small to help make a kid’s Christmas special.”

According to Gorman, the program has been a success in recent years with their expectations being surpassed each year.

“Every single year we have to request more tags than the year before because they all go so quickly, with more people participating,” Gorman said.