If it looks as if everyone around you is getting sick, you are not imagining it. The flu season is hitting america unusually early and far harder than it often does.
“I’m scared about what is going on to occur this flu season because I do not think we have ever seen a coalition of multiple viruses type of manifesting in this manner before,” said Dr. Elizabeth Clayborne, an emergency medicine doctor and associate professor on the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Clayborne family
Carlos Waters | CNBC
Covid precautions did result in lower rates of flu-like illnesses in comparison with normal, pre-pandemic times. But now that much of America has abandoned preventive measures corresponding to masking, more individuals are getting sick with seasonal illnesses.
“All the patterns of intermingling and transmission of various viruses really slowed down from that shutdown,” said Dr. Andrea Berry, associate professor of pediatrics and medicine at University of Maryland School of Medicine. “Because the world has opened up, the same old patterns will not be quite the identical.”
One among those flu-like illnesses is respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which is most severe in young children, the elderly and immune-compromised individuals.
There have been more reported cases of RSV in each week of October this yr than another week prior to now two years, and doctors across the country are raising the alarm about hospitals being overwhelmed this season.
Similar to RSV, cases of flu began surging earlier this yr, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting a minimum of 1,600,000 cases, 13,000 hospitalizations and 730 deaths as of Oct. 29, which is high for this early in a typical flu season.
Clayborne’s 2-year-old and 4-year-old children each had RSV in late September, and her older daughter needed to be taken to the emergency room for treatment.
Clayborne family
Carlos Waters | CNBC
“I do know that [the flu and RSV are] common and it looks as if plenty of kids get them,” Clayborne said. “But we see kids die on a regular basis, and frequently it’s from respiratory complications.”
There’s currently no federally approved vaccine for treating RSV, but Pfizer reported in early November that its RSV vaccine candidate in its phase 3 trial, which was given to moms while pregnant, was nearly 70% effective at protecting severe symptoms in infants lower than 6 months old.
Watch the video above to learn more about why this flu season is taking off with a surge and what we are able to do about it.