Short Wave - What You Need To Know About The Current Tripledemic

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Winter is upon us – and with the holiday travel and time spent indoors comes a triple threat of respiratory diseases: RSV, flu and COVID-19. Most of the country has been experiencing high or very high respiratory virus levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Host Regina G. Barber talks with NPR health correspondent Pien Huang about the annual 'tripledemic': what makes this winter different from winters past, who's most at risk and whether or not we're over the seasonal surge. Want to hear about another health story making headlines? Email us about it at [e-mail] — we might cover it on a future episode!See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey, Sherwavers, Regina Barber here with health correspondent Ping Huang. Hey, Ping. Hey, Regina. And as health correspondent Ping, you've been tracking all things RSV. And flu. And now the COVID season this past few months, right? Yeah, absolutely. And you are welcome. Thank you. Let me tell you, it has not been a slow gig recently, Regina. You know, a lot of people have been getting sick. which is not unexpected at this time of year. Most of the country has been having high or very high respiratory virus levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And this is pretty common after the holidays when people have been traveling, seeing loved ones,

and sharing their respiratory viruses along the way. Probably news tonight about respiratory illnesses with vaccination rates low. The agency says a new variant of Omicron is responsible for those cases. Alarming triple threat across the country. the vast majority of states are reporting high or very high level of the flu COVID-N-R-SV. This COVID season has been nowhere near as bad as when the OmerCon variant first hit two years ago. Hospitalizations and deaths are much lower than they were even last year. But COVID is still the most serious respiratory virus out there right now.

And we can't forget that a lot of this COVID surge that we've been seeing is tied to a new variant. Okay, so with all this in mind ping today on the show, the annual triple-demic that is RSV, the flu, and COVID. We survey how this winter respiratory virus season has been shaping up, who's most at risk, and what the CDC recommends to protect yourself. I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Okay, Ping, let's just start with a big step back. Are you taking a step back? I'm like scooting back in my chair, yeah. Okay, let's just talk big picture. Winter is flu season. It's also when a lot of people are getting cold. There's a big COVID spike happening across the nation right now. Why do these viruses love the winter? You're right, Regina. They do love the

winter. They love spreading through our spit and our snot and using our bodies as virus factories. And it is hard to disentangle a few factors that come together at this time of year. So number one is behavior. You know, we mentioned the holidays. People get close together because it's cold and they want to hang out and see each other and spend quality time together. They tend to get together inside when there's usually not a lot of fresh air coming through, diluting any virus particles get sneezed out, breathed out into the air. So indoor gathering usually exposes people to more viruses. And secondly, you know, flu and RSV have these pretty established winter patterns, but COVID isn't quite there yet. It kind of yo-yo's up and down.

We had the spike during the summer as well. But the fact that it hits during the winter may also have something to do with the fact of waning immunity, new variants that find ways around existing immunity. So yeah, winter is a total virus too. Like you mentioned, it's COVID, flu, RSV. It's also human metamovirus and different cold viruses. But those three are the top ones that the CDC pays the most attention to. Okay. And so given all that, how are we far so far this year? In comparison to like previous years. Yeah. So it's been pretty typical so far this year for flu and RSV at least. So RSV, respiratory, syncytivirus, it's most dangerous for young kids and the elderly. And the elderly. And the. And. that virus kind of plateaued around Thanksgiving levels are still high out there, but it's not really surging at the moment. For most people, RSV tends to look like a runny nose, feeling less hungry, coughing, sneezing, fever. These are symptoms that usually kind of unfold rather than showing up all at once, but it can still be quite deadly for infants and older adults. Switching to flu, flu is probably the most familiar of the trio flu RSI.

and COVID. And flu came on a little bit later this year. It kind of really skyrocketed in December. The CDC was warning that it was really high at the turn of the new year, really encouraging people to go out and get their shot still. And for flu, the symptoms, for people who haven't had in a while, you might have body aches, fatigue, or again, fever. Okay, so like fever and feeling fatigue, those two RSV and flu kind of sounds similar. Yeah, it's, I mean, a lot of these respiratory virus has come with like, it's definitely noses and body aches and fevers. And so if you really want to know what you have, your best chances of figuring it out are to go get tested. And same with COVID, right? COVID has been way up too. Yeah. So COVID numbers started climbing in November

and accelerated through December. But the good news is that the most recent CDC data show that we may be turning a corner. You know, the doctor's visits and hospitalizations, they're still high, but they've been stable or in some places they're starting to decrease. So I think the way to say it is that the situation seems to be stabilizing, plateauing. It's a little too early to say if it's peaked. Wastewater still shows very high levels of COVID, highest in the South and Midwest. And when I talked to Amy Kirby, who runs the National Wastewater Surveillance Program at the CDC about this, she told me that if you look at the wastewater data, COVID levels right now are even higher than they were last season.

but still, she says, We are still very far below the levels that we were seeing in 2022 with the Omopron peak. So we're not looking at that kind of, you know, really massive wave of infections. This is much more on par with what we saw last year. And even though the level of COVID is higher than it was last year at this time, other COVID metrics like ER visits and hospitalization rates, those are lower this year, the CDC says. In the most recent week, emergency department visits were down 13 percent,

But other metrics like hospitalizations and deaths, those are changing week to week. So it's kind of hard right now to say definitively if we're over that hump. One big factor right now is this new variant, JN1. It's been responsible for over 60% of the COVID cases from early January. So is it this variant that's actually driving this surge? Well, I think the word driving is the part that I get a little stuck on. It's hard to say if it's driving it or if it's just being opportunistic. You know, it could be people's behavior that's really driving the surge.

surge, you know, the fact that people aren't masking, they're not really taking precautions. Many people didn't get the booster shot. So it could be that the virus is just in the right place at the right time. That being said, the virus itself does have some mutations that may help it evade immunity. You know, like every new variant that spreads rapidly probably has some kind of advantage that helps it evade prior immunity. So that may be helping it spread as well, but it's hard to separate the virus itself from the lack of precautions people are taking around it. Yeah, but COVID still is the most serious virus. right now, right? Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Like last week, for instance, COVID put more than 35,000 new people in the hospital. At least 1,200 people died from it. And that is just a lot more than flu. One thing to note is that for much of the season, hospital capacity has been stable, which means that people who need care can generally get it. But recently, some regions have been reporting some hospital strains. So, for instance, children's hospitals in the southeast, they've been reporting strain. And this is an

area where virus levels have been consistently high for quite some time. Okay, but the risk of getting COVID, all these illnesses is still particularly concerning for like certain populations, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, sure, getting sick is inconvenient for everyone in general, but these viruses are actually quite dangerous for people who are very young and people who are older, 65 and up, and also for people with compromised immune systems, people who might not be able to fend off the virus and make a recovery. So these are the groups that are showing up as being most susceptible to serious illness and also death from flu and COVID and RSV. Yeah. And how do these folks protect themselves? How can we help? Well, honestly, it's all the usual suspects. So, you know, health officials are

really encouraging people to use all the tools we have right now. And that starts with awareness. So one of the things that's really useful this year is that there are maps at the CDC and local health departments put out that can help people figure out how much virus is circulating in their local area, how full the hospitals are. There's also preventives like vaccines. So every year now and going forward, there's going to be a newly formulated flu shot and a new COVID shot that comes out in the fall. And to be honest, the uptake this year has been quite low. So this year, half of U.S. adults got a flu shot this season and just 20% of people got the COVID booster. So these are numbers that are really low from what the CDC was hoping or expecting, and they've been thinking about ways to

boost that uptake. Lastly, you know, if you are sick, there are things you can do to prevent the spread. The advice is to really stay home if you can to not spread it on, get tested in case you qualify for some prescription meds that can help you get better, and to generally just be considerate and take good care of yourself and the people around you. Wow. Okay. So Ping, what are you keeping your eye on moving forward? So I'm really interested in seeing whether COVID and flu in particular this year have actually peaked. You know, there are some early signs showing that they are starting to decrease or at least stabilize. And so I'd be really excited if those numbers start going down. I'm also interested to see if anything will really change, you know, based on

previous seasons and what we've learned about respiratory viruses in general. Like I was in my local grocery store and I saw that shields were up again between cashiers and customers. And I was like, oh, this is cool. There are ways that we have learned in the recent past. to sort of try to prevent the spread, and maybe some of them are going to come back during virus season and get implemented again. I've seen people wearing masks occasionally again as well. So I'm really curious to see, like, A, what the epidemiological trend is and B, what precautions come back that we know work to help prevent the spread. Paine, thank you so much for giving us the lay of the land and setting our heads right about the risks right now. You are so welcome anytime, and I am excited to be back soon.

This episode was produced by Margaret Serino, edited by our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez and fact-checked by PING herself. The audio engineer was David Greenberg. Beth Donovan is our senior director. Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of programming, and Edith Chapin is our chief content officer. I'm Regina Barber. Thank you for listening to Shortwave from NPR.