The winter COVID-and-flu season is inclining up in California and globally. Doctors and other experts have made predictions that there is a worse respiratory illness season yet to come.
New reports claim the recent hike in the rate at which coronavirus and flu tests are returning positive. There is also a rise in the number of patients admitted to hospitals due to testing positive for the viruses like Covid and flu.
National wastewater data has predicted that this winter could see the highest number of coronavirus infections. It can occur in any given week since the first Omicron wave hit in fall 2021.
The regional chief of infectious diseases at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Dr. Elibeth Hudson states “And we’re probably not quite to the zenith of it yet.” Further, she continued “Looking at some of the data that we can extrapolate out from the wastewater, by the time we get to about January 10 or so, we are probably going to be seeing, within the U.S., about two million cases a day.”
It’s relieving to know that the number of people becoming seriously ill is very low compared to last year when hospitals were swamped by a “tripledemic” of COVID, flu, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
Hudson stated that the peak of the Omicron wave back in 2021-22 created about 5 million cases a day.
This winter is still showing a lower number of people critically ill by COVID-19 requiring rigorous hospital assistance, even though plenty of people are sick.
The last month in Los Angeles County has shown a drastic increase in rates at which tests for the coronavirus and flu are coming back positive. According to the records just in the last week of December, 18% of tests at county surveillance labs came back positive for flu which was only 10% in November. For Coronavirus, 13.5% tests came back positive which is nearly 4% higher than last month.
The chief medical officer for MemorialCare Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital Long Beach, Dr. Graham Tee stated, “Our emergency department is very busy, as well as our inpatient units.” He stated about this wave, “It’s a mixture of the three viruses -influenza, COVID, and RSV, but there are also many other respiratory viruses that we’re also seeing that are always more prevalent during the winter.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the last week of December which ended on Dec 30, California recorded about 3500+ new coronavirus-positive hospital admissions.
Since Oct 1, the CDC has reported an average of about 1300+ COVID-19 deaths a week nationally. Whereas, at the same time last year, there were about 2400 weekly COVID-19 deaths.
People need to take precautions to reduce the risk of catching or developing severe complications from COVID-19, flu, or other viral illness as doctors say. People should take fresh COVID-19 vaccine this winter and for babies, pregnant women, and older people, an RSV immunization is available and a must to take.
Goldzweig stated that, “People who are diligent and get the updated vaccinations as they come out, they’re just going to be less likely to have severe disease.”
