Originally Published by FortuneWell
Late last year, a so-called “tripledemic” of COVID, flu, and RSV overwhelmed hospitals—especially pediatric ones—in the U.S. and abroad.
The same pattern could play out again this year, experts warn.
Just when and how high levels of each virus will spike remains to be seen. But “the addition of COVID-19 into flu and RSV season exacerbates the burden on individual patients, as well as the health care system as a whole,” Tom Cotter—executive director of nonprofit Healthcare Ready, which connects government, nonprofits, and medical supply chains to prepare for disasters—tells Fortune.
Flu and RSV season usually begins in the fall, around October, and ends in the spring, around May. “Last winter, both flu and RSV hospitalizations started to grow weeks earlier than expected, and then a new, extremely contagious variant of COVID-19 piled on top,” putting hospitals in a predicament, Cotter says.
While it’s too early to say how things will play out this fall and winter, there are factors working in the country’s favor. The Southern Hemisphere didn’t experience an early start to their flu season, which bodes well for the Northern Hemisphere. Doctors have tools in their RSV toolbox that weren’t available last cold and flu season, including a vaccine for older adults and a monoclonal antibody treatment for babies. And updated COVID vaccines are expected this fall. Even if they’re no longer a perfect match to the dominating variants, experts say they should still offer renewed protection against hospitalization or death from the virus.
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