United States: Experts warn of the ‘quad-demic‘ that doctors are cautioning could befall Americans this winter: Influenza, COVID-19, RSV, and more.
Experts estimation this season
A group of experts has estimated that seasonal Covid, flu, a common cold virus known as RSV, and a stomach bug known as norovirus may reach their highest levels simultaneously.
This is because a cross-section of the nation’s population is indoors to fight off the flu and in the process is coming into contact with more people during the festive season – particularly Christmas and New Year.
What more are the experts stating?
That’s because this year, fewer people have taken the Covid and flu booster shots, and they worry more could be hospitalized, adding stress to the health sector.
According to Dr. Joe Bresee, an infectious diseases expert who spent two decades at the CDC, including its flu division, “We know these viruses are coming; we see them increase every year,” Daily Mail reported.
Moreover, “We are in store for increases in circulation in these four over the next couple of months and that would cause what we call epidemics [outbreaks],” Bresee added.
Warnings issued by experts
Doctors are issuing the warning because vaccination rates are lower than in previous years with flu, rates are almost half the protective level of 70 percent of people over 18.
As per Dr Bresee, who is also a member of the nonprofit Task Force for Global Health, “We are seeing increases in three of the main infectious diseases.”
“Right now, RSV is ticking up but it hasn’t peaked yet, flu is increasing but still low, we would expect that to peak around January to March, and norovirus is increasing, with infections expected to peak around January,” he added.
“Covid is also starting to increase now but is at pretty low levels, each year it goes up as well around January,” He continued, as Daily Mail added.
The most recent test data viewed from Population Surveillance confirm an overall positivity rate of 3.9 percent for the week ending November 6, while early data collected for the week ending December 7 hint at an uptick of 5.4 percent.
Rise in hospitalization cases
The number of flu admissions is also increasing, up 14 to 3.3 percent of all patient admissions in the week ending December 7th compared to 2.9 percent of patients in the previous two weeks.
RSV surveillance indicated that 1.2 per 100,000 people were being hospitalized with the disease in the week to November 30, down from 0.5 at the start of November.
Surveillance for norovirus indicated 40 reported outbreaks in the week of October 24, the latest available, up on before and higher than every year since 2012.
Dr Bresee and Dr Bill Schaffner of Tennessee Infectious Diseases called on the people to take the new flu and Covid vaccines to strengthen the body’s immune system against the diseases in the year.