How the holidays could affect COVID, flu, RSV in N.Y. – Spectrum News

A surge in illness has become the norm after holiday seasons conclude, and experts say itll be no different this year.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, seven states reported very high respiratory illness activity just before Christmas. While New York was not among them, the activity level was considered high.

The holidays can disrupt regular reporting of COVID-19, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity. That will resume Friday. But state health leaders said Tuesday they believe the numbers leading up to the holiday were a good indicator of whats to come.

We would expect there to be perhaps a little dip, but then things will likely go back up again, said Bryon Backenson of the state Health Department's Bureau of Communicable Disease Control.

Health experts say with so many children off from school where transmission of illness is high an uptick is almost a guarantee.

You can potentially then have spread within the family group itself, Backenson said.

According to the CDC, emergency room visits related to COVID-19, the flu and RSV were up about 6% across New York state the week before Christmas.

Numbers like that, numbers that we see from CDC, the number hospitalizations remind us that COVID is still a very severe illness for some people, Backenson said.

The CDC reports there were about 30,000 new hospitalizations last week related to COVID-19, the most since a year ago, and more than 14,000 Americans were hospitalized for the flu.

Fortunately, this year the three illnesses appear to be peaking at different times, which wasnt the case last year.

We have RSV that is probably close to peaking at this particular point. Flu and COVID at this point are both going up in parallel, so we may get to a point where we have a substantial amount of cases of both of those, Backenson said.

Overall, vaccination rates are down across the country. As of November, the CDC reported there were more than 7 million fewer influenza vaccine doses administered to adults than the year before.

The flu vaccine this year is a quite good match to what it is were seeing circulating with regards to it. And its never too late to get vaccinated, Backenson said.

There are, of course, the classic ways to mitigate the risks of catching illnesses wash your hands, cough into your arm and if youre sick, stay home from school or work.

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How the holidays could affect COVID, flu, RSV in N.Y. - Spectrum News