It has been a year of taking extra precautions with our health.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
For many, as we have reported this week, the first issue was all the smoke from the major bushfires that had us all living in a haze.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare statistics for the Murray region reported an almost doubling in the number of asthma-related emergency department presentations between January 5 and 11.
IN OTHER NEWS:
No surprises there, of course, as the fires were of such a scale and persisted for so long that there was always going to be a major impact on the health of many residents.
Not long had we got through that calamitous period than we had the spectre of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While deaths from the world-wide spread of this terrible virus were confined mainly, for Australia, in Melbourne, we have still had to live under the constant threat.
We have made herculean efforts to keep the virus at bay - and many have lost jobs - in what has been one of the most signficant health scares in decades.
The scourge of poliomyelitis before a vaccine was discovered and, a century ago now, the Spanish flu were the last times we have collectively been held hostage in such a way.
And now we are about to experience what will a return to heatwave conditions, no doubt reminding all of that exceedingly difficult summer just past.
The fire risk, for now, is not at the level last seen thanks to drought-breaking rains in 2020, so it will be the heat alone that will require people to take extra care.
The hot spell, stretching from today until Sunday, has led to the Murrumbidgee Local Health District urging people to take heat-related illnesses seriously.
Director Public Health Tracey Oakman says those over 75, young children, people who live alone and people with chronic medical conditions are especially vulnerable.
It's not in the same category as what we have already experienced in 2020, but the risk - even the possibility of deaths - is there.
We would ask all to take precautions, to keep up fluids and avoid the outdoors, so as to get through unscathed.