New data from the U.S. government suggests holiday gatherings did not cause a spike in respiratory illnesses.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday that visits to clinics for flu-like illnesses fell for a sixth straight week. Reports of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are also declining.
When flu and RSV surged in the fall and overwhelmed pediatric emergency rooms, some doctors believed that winter would not be a ‘triple disease’ of flu, RSV, and COVID-19. I was afraid. And they were worried that the holiday get-together would trigger.
But apparently that didn’t happen.
“Right now, everything is going downhill,” said CDC’s Lynette Brammer, who leads the agency’s flu tracking in the United States.
Hospitalizations for RSV have decreased since November, and hospitalizations for influenza have also decreased.
“Stalled”
Of course, the situation is not uniform across the country, with some places experiencing more illnesses than others. But some doctors say the number of patients is declining.
Ethan Wiener, M.D., pediatric emergency room physician at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital in NYU Langon, New York City, said:
“It’s slowed down significantly,” said Dr. Jason Newland, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri.
Newland said he wasn’t surprised by the downward trend in flu and respiratory syncytial virus in recent weeks, but added, “The question is what was COVID going to do?”
Hospitalizations for COVID-19 increased through December, including the week after Christmas. While his one set of CDC data appears to show they’re on a downward trend after the new year, an agency spokesperson said another count was up as of last week. I pointed out that it shows that Due to late reporting, it could be weeks before the CDC can be confident that her COVID-19 hospitalizations have actually started to decline, she said.
Second wave may still come
Newland said COVID-19 traffic increased at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in December. But he noted that the situation was very different from a year ago, when the then-new Omicron variant was causing the nation’s largest surge in hospitalizations for COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
“That was the worst,” he said.
The fall RSV and influenza surge was felt most acutely at children’s medical centers. Wiener said traffic in Hassenfeld’s pediatric emergency department was 50% above his normal levels in October, November and December.
“It kind of burned out,” he said, with the RSV and flu surge probably waning because so many members of the vulnerable population were infected.
It makes sense that a respiratory infection could come back during holiday travel or gatherings, but it’s not exactly clear why that didn’t happen.
That said, flu season isn’t over yet. With 36 states still reporting high or very high flu activity, experts say there’s always a chance a second wave of illness is still ahead.
