Other non-COVID-19 respiratory viruses running rampant in Massachusetts, doctors say – WCVB Boston

Massachusetts doctors are facing a springtime whopper with COVID-19, cold and flu cases on the rise, along with allergies.”Non-COVID respiratory viruses are rampant. Allergies, this is the time,” said Dr. Shira Doron, the hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.Doron said not only are colds and allergies acting up, the state report that tracks weekly flu cases shows that the influenza virus is spreading at the moment.”We are in a huge spike and it is only going up,” she said.The tricky part about distinguishing all of these respiratory illnesses is that they have overlapping symptoms, especially COVID-19 and the flu. So the only true way to know if an illness is COVID-19 or something else is to get tested for COVID-19.Those who are using at-home COVID-19 tests are encouraged to test themselves more than once.”The home tests are just sometimes negative before they turn positive because you need to have a certain level of viral load to be positive on a home test,” Doron said.Once someone tests negative twice a couple of days apart, Doron said it is then probably safe for that person to leave isolation, but they should still cover up.”I think that we’ve entered a time when if you have respiratory symptoms, you should wear a mask around other people, even if you know it’s not COVID,” Doron said.