Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\nThe virus is landing many in the hospital, including a Cobb County baby, who is now in the ICU.<\/p>\n
Channel 2\u2019s Candace McCowan spoke to the baby\u2019s family and a pediatrician about what happened and how to prevent illness during flu season.<\/p>\n
Sara Stoesz, the infant\u2019s aunt, spoke to McCowan about how Christmas took a turn.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey put him in ICU on a ventilator,\u201d Stoesz said.<\/p>\n
For four-month-old Oliver from Acworth, what was a fever on Christmas Day has left him in serious condition at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as they got there, they took his vitals and rushed him back to a room,\u201d Stoesz said. \u201cShe got a test back within an hour that he was flu-A positive and right after that, they came back and said he\u2019s also positive for RSV.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Stoesz says her nephew Oliver, who is typically a chill, happy baby, also has pneumonia.<\/p>\n
TRENDING STORIES:<\/p>\n
The Georgia Department of Public Health shows positive influenza A tests have been climbing week-by-week, and still are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had that brief period where it got chilly right after thanksgiving,\u201d Dr. Tim Paul at Tanner Health said. \u201cA lot of people came together for the holiday and now here you are a month, two to four weeks later, where you start to see it blossom. So we\u2019re just getting a big influx.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s landing many people in the hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe little babies and older folks are at risk,\u201d Paul told Channel 2 Action News.<\/p>\n
For Oliver, Stoesz said no one else in the family has tested positive and while they\u2019re praying for his quick recovery, they\u2019re warning others.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s a runny nose or a cough, it doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s not a big deal to you or me,\u201d Stoesz said. \u201cIf you\u2019re sick, stay home. To us, it\u2019s just a cold, to them it could literally take their life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hospitals are seeing an influx of patients.<\/p>\n
A metro area hospital told Channel 2 Action News that they\u2019re looking for spaces that are safe to treat patients.<\/p>\n
[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>]<\/p>\n\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COBB COUNTY, Ga. \u2014 People across the country are getting sick with the flu right now, including in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[13897,76395,6931,104372,681,185572,97,3729,185569,185573,23495,185571,7051,185570,33927],"class_list":["post-379658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-cdc","tag-channel_2_action_news","tag-christmas","tag-cobb_county","tag-georgia","tag-georgia_department_of_public_health","tag-health","tag-local","tag-macworth","tag-metro_hospitals","tag-oliver","tag-sarah_sta","tag-thanksgiving","tag-woolstar_kennestone","tag-wsbsyndication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}