Hospital lifts flu season restrictions
Flu-season visitation restrictions at Yuma Regional Medical Center have been lifted.
That means children under 18 are allowed back into the hospital's patient care and waiting areas. Health experts say kids tend to be more likely than adults to be carriers of the flu virus without showing symptoms, and for longer periods of time. Children also typically contract more viruses than adults do.
YRMC began restricting visitation in January to prevent unnecessary exposure to the flu virus, which can be an uncomfortable inconvenience for some people and deadly for others. In addition to limiting young visitors, the hospital asked adults who felt like they had the flu or who had flu-like symptoms to refrain from visiting.
Yuma County had 110 lab-confirmed cases of influenza between the official start of the flu season on Sept. 30 through March 9, according to the Arizona Department of Health. There were 10,979 cases statewide in the same time frame.
