What to know about this winter’s surge of viral illnesses across the country

John Yang:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that nationwide, the number of people going to doctors with things like the flu, RSV and COVID is high and surging. So what better time to check in with epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, who writes the popular Substack newsletter, Your Local Epidemiologist, Katelyn, is what we're seeing now sort of the standard respiratory virus season or is there something unusual going on now?

Katelyn Jetelina, Author, "Your Local Epidemiologist": Yeah, I mean, like you said, there's no doubt it's ugly out there, right? There's a lot of sick people with coughs, fevers, sore throats, especially in the south and the west with very high levels. Soon the entire country will be in the red. But these levels aren't unusual. Right. We are actually seeing the same level of sickness that we would be seeing them pre pandemic times.

I will say, though, what is unusual is that COVID is not necessarily dominating. The main culprit right now is flu. So flu is accounting for many more emergency departments as well as hospitalizations compared to RSV and COVID, for example. And this is definitely a shift from the past four years.

John Yang:

What do we know about booster shots and flu shots last fall and what effect that's having now?

Katelyn Jetelina:

Yeah, well, unfortunately, vaccination rates are suboptimal. Only 1 in 4 U.S. adults have the COVID vaccine, and less than 50 percent of Americans have the flu vaccine. This is far lower than our goal of 70 percent. I think what's even more concerning is that fewer and fewer children are getting the flu vaccines every year. And this is a trend we're seeing across all types of vaccinations.

But lower flu vaccination rates, for example, means more disruptions for parents, more strained hospital systems and more pediatric deaths. Last year was one of the worst years for flu deaths among kids in the past decade. And so there's no doubt that more vaccinations would certainly help our systems.

John Yang:

One other ingredient in this viral stew this season is the norovirus. Is that what's commonly called the stomach flu?

Katelyn Jetelina:

Yeah. So norovirus, think nausea, diarrhea, throwing up. It is not fun. It is also unusually high right now. We're seeing far more outbreaks than usual. We don't really know why this is the case, but typically when this happens, it means that the virus had mutated ever so slightly to infect more people.

The thing with norovirus is it spread through surfaces and it's incredibly contagious and it's really hard to kill. So hand sanitizer actually doesn't work against norovirus, so you have to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds. And using bleach products for surfaces will certainly do the trick as well.

John Yang:

There are two other viruses in the headlines, something called HMPV on the rise in China, which of course is raising unhappy comparisons with the beginning of COVID and the bird flu. Just last week, we had the first bird flu death. How concerned should people be about those?

Katelyn Jetelina:

Yeah, HMPV, right. It's called human metanoma virus, has made headlines in China and India. But this is not a new virus. It's been around for a while. And every year in the U.S. we see a flare up in late winter and early spring, and it causes less severe disease than flu or COVID. Think like the common cold. Right. So while it's never fun to be sick at home, this virus really should take up very little headspace in the average American.

Bird flu. You're right. We're seeing lots of headlines around that. Thankfully, we're still just seeing human cases that are directly infected from animals. We're not seeing human to human transmission. And the highest risk of Americans are agriculture workers working with poultry or dairy farms as well as Americans that drink raw milk because there's high levels of H5N1 bird flu virus in those.

John Yang:

Is the government doing enough about the bird flu?

Katelyn Jetelina:

I mean, there certainly could be doing a lot more, especially the animal side, like USDA. We are still flying blind. For example, we do not know how many true dairy herds are out there infected. And because it is running rampant among animals, it's spilling over to humans. And the problem every time it jumps from animal to human, has the ability to mutate. And the time to prevent a pandemic is now. And there's certainly a whole lot more our government could be doing.

John Yang:

Katelyn Jetelina, always very helpful when we talk to you. Thank you very much.

Katelyn Jetelina:

Thanks for having me.