For the last 5 years, Fran and Madison Harris have spent their Christmas morning taking treats to the police and fire station in Pembroke Park near their home.<\/p>\n
“My daughter Madison dialed 911 after watching Sesame Street and Elmo dialed 911, so because they came so quickly, I’m like, ‘If I ever need you guys, you’re right there.’ So this is my way, and our way of saying thank you,” Fran Harris said.<\/p>\n
But this year Fran Harris is hoping Madison feels better in time to continue their tradition.<\/p>\n
“My daughter spent the afternoon with her grandmother on Monday and by Tuesday morning, she woke up with the sniffles,” Fran Harris said.<\/p>\n
And the Harris family isn’t alone.<\/p>\n
“He got it, he came back from Kindergarten with it, I got it the next day,” said Gal Shefer.<\/p>\n
The CDC estimates there have been 4.6 million flu cases across the U.S. and 1,900 patients have already died from the flu.<\/p>\n
“We are seeing more of influenza A in most of Florida right now,” said Dr. Michael Glazier.<\/p>\n
Glazier is a pediatrician and the chief medical officer of Bluebird Kids Health. He said we are seeing more influenza-like illness in South Florida.<\/p>\n
He said if you’re traveling, practice proper handwashing – that means warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Or use hand sanitizer if you can’t get to a sink.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you don’t feel well, particularly if you have a fever and worsening symptoms, Glazier says, skip the get-together.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I think the other side of Christmas and New Year’s, there will continue to be an uptick in cases of influenza-like illness just based on the travel and based on one set of germs 20 miles is different from another ecosystem of germs here,” Glazier said.<\/p>\n
Harris said her family plans to enjoy the rest of their holiday at home.<\/p>\n
“We’re going to be in for the holidays, we’re not traveling, we’re not doing anything, we’ll be home, we’ll hang around the house, we’ll have a blast, and we’ll wait until this passes,” Harris said.<\/p>\n
Doctors said it’s not too late to get the flu shot to protect yourself for the rest of the flu season, and prevent hospitalization or death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the last 5 years, Fran and Madison Harris have spent their Christmas morning taking treats to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,50836,13828,807],"class_list":["post-95458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-flu-season","tag-holiday-season","tag-south-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}