“Is something going around?”, is a question that I am often asked. “Yes”, is invariably the answer. We have been seeing colds, flu, RSV and Covid 19. They vary from day to day. It’s hard to come up with a trend. Since we have been doing a multi-pathogen test which checks for 21 different viruses and 14 bacteria we have seen some surprises. More people have tested positive for a few bacteria than we would have predicted. There are government websites that you can check that quantitate reported tests. The caveat is that most cases of Covid 19 are diagnosed through home testing and don’t show up in reported tests. Here is a link to the Texas Department of Health Services website if you want to see what the official reports look like,
Texas Respiratory Illnesses Dashboard (arcgis.com)
Here is an example of the reports included:
