{"id":390817,"date":"2026-01-06T02:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T02:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/390817\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T02:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T02:32:07","slug":"flu-cases-surge-in-monroe-county-as-hospitals-and-urgent-cares-face-influx-of-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/390817\/","title":{"rendered":"Flu cases surge in Monroe County as hospitals and urgent cares face influx of patients"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rochester, N.Y. (WHAM) \u2014 Flu cases are surging both nationally and locally, with New York state recently reporting a record number of cases in a single week. Local hospitals and urgent care centers are experiencing a significant influx of flu patients.<\/p>\n<p>Parker Remelt, lead physician assistant at Rochester Regional Health&#8217;s urgent care facilities, said there has been a startling number of recent influenza cases in Monroe County.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think we&#8217;ve seen just about all the Rochester with flu,&#8221; Remelt said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know if there&#8217;s anyone left who hasn&#8217;t had it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/13wham.com\/news\/nation-world\/ways-to-protect-yourself-as-flu-cases-spike-across-us-health-vaccine-respiratory-virus-mutated-strain-h3n2-immunity-symptoms-fever-headache-muscle-aches-general-malaise-disease-illness-sick-rsv-covid-19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ways to protect yourself as flu cases spike across US<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/13wham.com\/news\/local\/flu-patients-share-stories-amid-states-record-breaking-cases\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Flu patients describe &#8216;horrible&#8217; symptoms amid New York state&#8217;s record-breaking outbreak<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Remelt noted flu cases will likely continue to increase, especially after recent holiday gatherings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Definitely the last couple weeks. they&#8217;ve been ramping up through December and then also through obviously now into January,&#8221; Remelt said. &#8220;They&#8217;ve been steadily increasing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/rochealthdata.org\/influenza-surveillance-dashboard\/?l=36055&amp;at=flu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ROC Health Data<\/a>, Monroe County reported more than 1,800 flu cases for the week ending Dec. 27. Although that number was slightly lower than the previous week, flu hospitalizations are on the rise.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our urgent cares are extremely busy. The emergency departments are also extremely busy,&#8221; Remelt explained. &#8220;We have long wait times, but I&#8217;ll say that our wait times are shorter than the emergency department. We&#8217;re able to get people in and out faster a lot of times, and we&#8217;re able to get them the answers that they need.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Remelt advises patients with milder symptoms to visit urgent care first and utilize its rapid testing capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In situations where the patient is having significant difficulty breathing, if they&#8217;re having chest pain or if they&#8217;re really, really ill, I would recommend in that case skipping us and going directly to the emergency department,&#8221; Remelt said.<\/p>\n<p>The University of Rochester Medical Center reported flu hospitalizations at Strong Memorial Hospital decreased this week, while COVID-19 cases increased.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are seeing some COVID,&#8221; Remelt said. &#8220;We&#8217;re definitely seeing an increase in that the last couple of months, but the majority of the cases that we&#8217;re seeing at this point are influenza.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Remelt encourages everyone to get the flu shot if they haven&#8217;t yet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a great way to help make sure that if you do get the flu, you get a much more mild variant in comparison with someone who didn&#8217;t get a vaccine,&#8221; Remelt added. &#8220;It&#8217;s also a good way to help prevent the illness in total.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochesterregional.org\/locations\/urgent-care#f-pl_locationcategory=Urgent%20Care\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">CLICK HERE<\/a> to view the wait times for Rochester Regional Health&#8217;s urgent care facilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rochester, N.Y. (WHAM) \u2014 Flu cases are surging both nationally and locally, with New York state recently reporting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-390817","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}