{"id":81850,"date":"2026-01-09T00:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T00:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/81850\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T00:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T00:38:11","slug":"flu-surge-strains-erie-county-ers-officials-warn-against-non-urgent-visits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/81850\/","title":{"rendered":"Flu surge strains Erie County ERs; officials warn against non\u2011urgent visits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hospital leaders in Erie County say emergency rooms are getting overwhelmed as respiratory illnesses are spiking this winter.<\/p>\n<p>BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 Erie County health officials are urging people to use hospital emergency rooms and ambulances only for true medical emergencies.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wgrz.com\/article\/news\/health\/cdc-making-changes-to-the-childhood-vaccine-schedule\/71-d0707d89-eb31-4486-8d2e-897bc0b75b28\" class=\"cms__embed-related-story__link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CDC makes changes to the childhood vaccine schedule<\/a><\/p>\n<p>They say a surge in severe respiratory illnesses like the flu are causing mayor slow downs in the ER, with longer waiting room times as well as delays in ambulance response.<\/p>\n<p>According to officials at Kenmore Mercy Hospital, they are now having capacity issues with the influx of patients.<\/p>\n<p>2 On Your Side talked with Dr. Michael Mangione, the hospital&#8217;s emergency department medical director, about those concerns.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Usually we like to have you try some supportive care at home &#8230; get you to start feeling better,&#8221; Dr. Mangione said.<\/p>\n<p>The county health department says the use of 911 should be reserved for life-threatening symptoms such as chest pain, trouble breathing, stroke signs, or severe injuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re also asking people to seek alternatives for non-urgent care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hospital leaders in Erie County say emergency rooms are getting overwhelmed as respiratory illnesses are spiking this winter.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-81850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-erie","9":"tag-erie-headlines","10":"tag-erie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}