Greetings!,

How are you doing?

It's a question we ask, and get asked, maybe a dozen or more times a day. The typical response: Fine, thanks.

These days, with all the cold and flu bugs going around, "how are you doing?" is not just a throw away question. If you watch the news, you may have seen how many people have been infected this year. If you have not, or didn't notice, Michigan is in the top tier for infections.

With that said, I found these facts interesting:

• Norovirus (the so-called “stomach flu”) is not actually the flu virus at all. But it’s wildly contagious, and people who’ve contracted it can shed billions of virus particles and even after symptoms improve, they can still infect others for days. - University of Rochester Medical Center, January 6, 2026

• The Norovirus family gets its name from a town just minutes from where I grew up. The virus was named after the original Norwalk strain, which caused an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis in children at an elementary school in Norwalk, Ohio in 1968. That first strain became known as the Norwalk virus, and later the genus Norovirus was named after it. - CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal (Volume 13, Issue 3), 2007

• "During peak flu season, emergency rooms routinely see patients whose oxygen levels drop so low they don’t realize how sick they are - a phenomenon doctors call silent hypoxia." ~ Mayo Clinic – Winter Respiratory Illness Advisory, 2024

• Depending on severity, influenza can cost the U.S. economy tens of billions of dollars per year once medical costs and lost productivity are accounted for... which goes to show how a health event can quickly turn into a problem that adversely affects the economy as well. - National Library of Medicine, April 20, 2007

• This season, there have been more than 4.6 million flu cases, 49,000 hospitalizations, and 1,900 deaths so far. These numbers have been climbing sharply, and that’s before the season even peaks. - Center for Disease Control and Prevention, December 19, 2025

• Some flu viruses can survive on hard surfaces like doorknobs, phones, and countertops for up to 48 hours, meaning you can catch the flu from touching something long after the sick person is gone. In other words… the room can still be contagious even when it’s empty! - CDC Archives, September 22, 2021

So after reading all of this, if you are brave enough to venture out of your home, be sure to wash your hands often, take your vitamins, and try to get plenty of sleep.

As always, thanks for reading.



Bernie & Chad