(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A local doctor is weighing in on rising cases of COVID, flu and RSV -- as well as a mysterious illness you may have read about on social media.
Dr. Colleen Nash of Rush University Medical Center said she’s seeing plenty of young Illinoisans with RSV, but the concerns don’t stop there.
“We’re also seeing quite a bit of COVID and more severe COVID in children,” she said.
“We’re also starting to see increases in influenza, all in the background of some other, routine wintertime viruses.”
That uptick has prompted the Illinois Department of Public Health to urge healthcare facilities to beef up mitigation measures such as masking and social distancing.
Vaccines remain the key to fighting off infection, she said.
As for a purported condition sometimes called “white lung” disease, Nash said there’s really no such thing.
“I think it’s more a descriptor of what a lung or lungs can look like if imaging like a chest X-ray is taken on a patient,” she said.
The University of Rochester Medical Center says the non-medical term has been used in media reports and social media to describe some cases of pneumonia.
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