{"id":5473,"date":"2023-12-12T13:59:43","date_gmt":"2023-12-12T19:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5473"},"modified":"2023-12-12T13:59:46","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T19:59:46","slug":"covid-and-flu-rising-ahead-of-holidays-increasing-er-visits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/12\/12\/covid-and-flu-rising-ahead-of-holidays-increasing-er-visits\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid and flu rising ahead of holidays, increasing ER visits"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/health\/2023\/12\/12\/covid-rising-flu-rsv-variant\/\">Washington Post<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Respiratory viruses are rebounding in the United States on the precipice of the end-of-year holidays, with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/respiratory-viruses\/data-research\/dashboard\/activity-levels.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">emergency room visits<\/a>&nbsp;for covid-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus collectively reaching their highest levels since February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the three viruses, covid continues to be the biggest driver of hospitalizations, settling into a familiar rhythm of causing periodic waves without wreaking havoc on the health-care system as it once did.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/covid.cdc.gov\/covid-data-tracker\/#trends_weeklyhospitaladmissions_select_00\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hospitals reported<\/a>&nbsp;more than 22,000 new covid admissions the week ending Dec. 2, the highest since the peak of the summer wave in September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Compared with punishing pandemic winters and a triple-threat of viral waves returning last year, public health authorities are urging vigilance instead of alarm this holiday season. \u201cReally, this is what we had anticipated would happen,\u201d said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. \u201cWe are not seeing or hearing any reports of hospitals running into capacity issues like we were last year, but we don\u2019t feel we are out of the woods yet.\u201d The toll of respiratory virus season is uneven across the country, cresting in some states and receding in others. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says levels of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/respiratory-viruses\/data-research\/dashboard\/activity-levels.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">overall respiratory illness<\/a>\u00a0are high across most of the Sun Belt and in New York City and New Jersey, largely driven by flu and respiratory syncytial virus, widely known as RSV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Louisiana, designated by the CDC asone of two states experiencing very high respiratory illness, the primary driver is flu, which health officials say usually peaks this time of year. Covid is more unpredictable and is creeping up again just weeks after a fall surge waned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe can continue to expect periodic surges, and hopefully they continue to remain with relatively low clinical acuity,\u201d said Joseph Kanter, Louisiana\u2019s health officer. \u201cUnless we get some variant that\u2019s a real curveball, that seems to be the normal, and we are thankful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/health\/2023\/12\/12\/covid-rising-flu-rsv-variant\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington Post Respiratory viruses are rebounding in the United States on the precipice of the end-of-year holidays, with&nbsp;emergency room visits&nbsp;for covid-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus collectively reaching their highest levels since February. Among the three viruses, covid continues to be the biggest driver of hospitalizations, settling into a familiar rhythm of causing periodic waves [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-headlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5473"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5474,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5473\/revisions\/5474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}