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Flu cases are higher than the same for this time of year and are expected to skyrocket in the coming weeks. Another virus, RSV, is already affecting children’s hospitals in some states.
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By Apoorva Mandavilli
For more than two years, closed schools and offices, social distancing and masks have given Americans relief from the flu and other respiratory infections. This winter would possibly be different.
With few to no restrictions on position and socialization in full swing, an expected winter surge in Covid cases appears poised to collide with a resurgent flu season, causing a “double demic” or even a “triple demic”, with a third pathogen, breathing the syncytial virus, or R. S. V. , into the mix.
Flu cases appear before the same and are expected to skyrocket in the coming weeks. Children become inflamed with R. S. V. (which has flu- and covid-like symptoms), rhinoviruses and enteroviruses are already putting pressure on pediatric hospitals in several states.
“We’re seeing everything come back in force,” said Dr. Brown. Alpana Waghmare, an infectious disease at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Most cases of covid, flu and RSV are likely benign, but in combination they can sicken millions of Americans and flood hospitals, public fitness experts have warned.
“You have this decreased immunity to covid, which coincides with the effect of the flu coming here and RSV,” said Andrew Read, an evolutionary microbiologist at Pennsylvania State University. “We’re in uncharted territory here. “
Covid and flu vaccines, while not preventing infection, still offer coverage against serious illness and death, Mavens said. They suggested that everyone, especially those most at risk, get vaccinated as soon as possible.
Older adults, immunocompromised Americans, and pregnant women are most at risk, and young people are highly vulnerable to influenza and RSV. Many inflamed young people become seriously ill because they have poor immunity, either because it has diminished or because they were not exposed to those viruses before pandemic.
RSV causes approximately 14,000 deaths in adults 6 years of age and older and up to three hundred deaths in children under five years of age. No vaccine is available, however, at least two applicants are in complex stages of clinical trials and appear to be highly effective in the elderly. Pfizer is also preparing an antiviral drug.
“To date, we are seeing an equivalent number of covid, flu and RSV and he is concerned because it is too early for influenza and RSV. “said Dr. Diego Hijano, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at St. Children’s Research Hospital. Jude.
“It’s going to be a tough winter,” he said.
Coronavirus cases are low, but they are starting to do so in some parts of the country. Several European countries, in addition to France, Germany and Britain, are experiencing increases in hospitalizations and deaths, raising fears that the U. S. will be able to increase the economy. .
Some of the coronavirus variants in development are adept at circumventing immunity and drugs like Evusheld and Bebtelovimab, which are specifically for protective immunocompromised people.
People with weakened immune systems “remain threatened even though they receive all doses of vaccines or even more,” Dr. Waghmare said.
Public fitness experts are involved in a constellation of Omicron variants that appear to elude immunity to vaccines and even recent infection more than previous variants.
The latest booster vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna were designed for the variants that ruled this summer, but not for those new variants. Still, they develop overall antibody levels and help stave off severe symptoms and shorten the duration of illness, Aubree Gordon said. , an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan.
The BA. 5 variant, the maximum evasive immune variant until recently, however, is being temporarily replaced by others, adding two that show an even greater ability to cross immunity.
One of them, known as BQ. 1. 1, is the main candidate to cause a winter wave and has already skyrocketed cases in Europe. Although he and a very similar variant called BQ. 1 in combination account for only about 11% of cases. in the United States, their percentage increased by just 3% two weeks ago.
A mix of two Omicron subvariants called XBB has fueled a wave of cases in Singapore, one of the countries with the highest number of vaccines in the world. Another variant, called BA. 2. 75. 2, is also highly immune and causes more severe disease, but is just as guilty of less than 2% of cases nationwide.
Most of the other variants don’t appear to cause more severe symptoms than previous versions of the virus, but the trend of immune evasion is expected to continue, Mavens said.
“Now things have been replaced with the high degree of immunity that other people have opposed to previous variants,” said Cornelius Roemer, a computational biologist at Richard Neher’s organization at the University of Basel.
The Food and Drug Administration has legal reinforcements designed for BA. 5 for all Americans age five and older, but so far, only a small fraction of other people eligible for a vaccine have earned one. Fewer than one in 3 children over the ages of five to 11. they have even finished the first Covid vaccine circular.
That could replace other people who see an immediate backlog of cases, Dr. Gordon said.
Before the coronavirus hit the world, flu viruses sickened millions of people each winter and killed tens of thousands of Americans. During the 2018-2019 season, influenza was responsible for thirteen million medical visits, 380,000 hospitalizations, and 28,000 deaths.
The flu season in the southern hemisphere, between May and October, is very predictive of winters in the northern hemisphere. This year, the flu started weeks earlier than in Australia and New Zealand, and the number of cases and hospitalizations was particularly higher. .
Dr. Gordon tracks flu rates among children in Nicaragua, which has a flu season in June and July, and a higher one last fall. More than 90% of the population was considered fully vaccinated against covid by January 2022, and many other people had also gained immunity to one or more infections.
However, the country experienced the highest rates of covid and flu in the early part of this year. Flu rates among youth were higher than those of the 2009 flu pandemic, and on average, youth were sicker than in previous years. “We’ve noticed a lot of hospitalizations,” Dr. Gordon said.
In the United States, the flu begins to manifest in October and continues until March, with a peak between December and February. But in some states, this year’s season is already underway.
About 3 percent of national testing has been for flu through Oct. 8, according to the CDC, but rates are above 10 percent in some southeastern states and above 5 percent in the Midwest. In Texas, the share of flu testing rose to 5. 3% in early October, up from 3. 7% last week.
Some southern states are also reporting an increase in fan use. In York, fitness officials said earlier this month that the flu was already widespread in the state.
Public fitness experts have suggested Americans, especially those most at risk, get a flu shot before cases rise much higher. Less reduces by half the threat of hospitalization in youth and adults.
The antibodies are activated about two weeks after an injection, so a vaccine can now actually have greater coverage in the winter wave than a vaccine won in September.
Last year, flu vaccination rates declined across all age teams from last year, according to a CDC analysis. 75% before the arrival of the coronavirus.
The rate of decline is possibly due to the fact that distrust of covid vaccines has spread to flu vaccines, or simply because parents have forgotten the danger the flu poses to young children. It’s too early to say whether the numbers will be this year.
Older adults and other immunocompromised people deserve to be vaccinated against covid and influenza, public fitness experts have said. time away from work, or to protect others around you who are most at risk.
Some communities have a higher threat of severe illness and hospitalization for influenza. During the 2009 to 2022 flu seasons, hospitalization rates were 80 percent higher among black adults, 30 percent higher among Native American/Alaska Native adults, and 20 percent higher among Hispanic adults than white adults, according to a CDC report released this week.
However, flu vaccination rates declined greatly in those groups. Immunization policy also declined by about nine percentage points from last year among pregnant women of all racial and ethnic groups.
In February 2020, Dr. Gordon was preparing to communicate about the coronavirus in the elegance of his 7-year-old daughter when a child died of an influenza B infection.
“Most of the time it doesn’t make you very sick, but it can,” Dr. Gordon said of the flu. “We have an effective flu vaccine, so I urge other people to get vaccinated. “
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