This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an “urgent” warning about the need to increase respiratory virus immunizations in the United States as a “tripledemic” of COVID-19, the flu and RSV sweeps across the country.
Cases of all three respiratory viruses are surging. Over the last four weeks, COVID hospitalizations have swelled by more than 50%, while flu hospitalizations climbed by a whopping 200% and RSV hospitalizations by 60%.
Despite the tripledemic being in “full swing,” according to CDC director Mandy Cohen, M.D., interest among the public in getting vaccines that prevent the respiratory viruses seems to have flatlined.
As of December 8, just over 17% of the eligible adults had received the updated COVID vaccine, while around 41% have gotten the flu shot and 16% of people 60 and older have gotten the new RSV vaccine for adults.
Even among health care workers who take care of vulnerable patients in nursing facilities, vaccine uptake is low.
This prompted the CDC to issue a health alert calling for efforts to increase immunization rates in both children and adults.
“Low vaccination rates, coupled with ongoing increases in national and international respiratory disease activity caused by multiple pathogens, including influenza viruses, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), and RSV, could lead to more severe disease and increased healthcare capacity strain in the coming weeks,” the alert says.
Hospitals have been under increased pressure for weeks. Most recently, the CDC reported that around 70% of inpatient and intensive care unit beds were currently occupied.
And those figures are expected to grow, especially with the new JN.1 COVID variant spreading rapidly throughout the U.S. Experts believe that JN.1, which is closely related to BA.2.86, is “better at evading immunity” than other variants currently circulating. It currently accounts for 21% of COVID cases and has quickly become the fastest-spreading variant in the U.S.
The CDC has said that, due to its quick climb up their variant tracker charts, JN.1 will likely lead to an increase in COVID activity in the coming weeks.
