(Radio Iowa) – A particularly nasty flu season is peaking in Iowa and several hospitals in the state report admissions spikes and flooded emergency rooms. One Des Moines hospital even postponed all elective surgeries that require overnight stays. Brian Simmons, infection preventionist at Emplify Health by Gundersen, is urging Iowans to learn how to identify the key symptoms of the flu versus a cold so they’re not unnecessarily contributing to overcrowded E-Rs.

“The main difference when you’re looking at — do I have influenza, do I have the common cold — is going to be that fever, having a high fever or the chills or body aches,” Simmons says. “Usually if you have those body aches and a fever along with a sore throat, cough, runny nose, that seems to be more of having the influenza.” If there’s just a sore throat, runny nose and sneezing, it’s likely just a cold. While some areas are seeing a rise in cases of R-S-V and COVID-19, Simmons says colds and the flu seem to be the worst, at the moment.

“The best thing really to do if you get either one is stay home and rest,” Simmons says. “Stay hydrated, drink plenty of fluids, just lay low for a little bit and rest your body, let your body’s immune system take over and fight those illnesses.” The four UnityPoint hospitals in the Des Moines metro area report a tenfold increase in the number of patients testing positive for the flu in recent weeks, with several hundred cases confirmed since late December.

A C-D-C report says about 300-thousand Iowans get the flu every year and, along with complications from pneumonia, it kills about one-thousand of them each year.

Emplify Health by Gundersen has clinics in Calmar, Decorah, Fayette, Lansing, Postville and Waukon, and a hospital in West Union.