It's an unusual winter for respiratory illnesses. The flu is peaking twice: once in early January and again in February. Meanwhile, it's the mildest COVID winter since the pandemic began.
The annual winter respiratory virus season is in full force. The number of people catching the flu is skyrocketing, while COVID-19, RSV and other respiratory viral illnesses are also rising.
Flu is rising, and COVID levels are higher than last season's peak. But COVID hospitalizations and deaths are down. Nonetheless, COVID is still the most dangerous virus circulating.
National data shows COVID-19 levels are moderate. In most of the U.S., levels of other respiratory viruses are low, although RSV is ticking up in some southeastern states.
At least 58,000 childern younger than 5 years old are hospitalized each year with RSV infections. A Pfizer vaccine given to pregnant people could help protect their infants from severe RSV illness.
After more than five decades of trying, the drug industry is on the verge of providing effective immunizations against the respiratory syncytial virus, which has put an estimated 90,000 U.S. infants and small children in the hospital since the start of October.
The main reason the surge is ebbing now, pandemic experts suspect, is the significant immunity many people in the U.S. have acquired from prior infections and COVID vaccinations many received.
The illness sends tens of thousands of babies to the hospital each year. If approved, the new injection would be the first broadly available prevention tool.
RSV and the flu appear to be receding in the U.S., but COVID is on the rise, new data suggests, driven by holiday gatherings and an even more transmissible omicron subvariant that has become dominant.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say 56% of Georgians are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. But only a quarter got the updated variant-targeting shots this flu season.
