The Covid-19 triple threat in New York and beyond: Implications for vaccines, public masking, and antibiotics in the United States and beyond

In China, the government has finally begun to ease draconian zero-Covid policies. Most Americans are resigned to the fact that Covid-19 won’t be gone in their lifetime, and many feel a return to masking is unpleasant.

Over the past few weeks, a surge in cases of COVID, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus — known as RSV — has been sickening millions of Americans, overwhelming emergency rooms and even causing a cold medicine shortage. Some health experts have labeled the triple threat a “Tripledemic”.

Those warnings come just as the federal government moves in the opposite direction with vaccines. The defense bill passed by the House eliminates a requirement for military service members to have Covid vaccine.

In New York, the state’s health and education executives have encouraged schools and communities to take precautions such as indoor public masks, and the use of antibiotics.

5% of the population lives in a high spread county, according to the director of the CDC. According to the CDC, more than two-thirds of Americans live in an area with low transmission, but cases are rising.

A Recommendation for Indoor Masking to Address the Emerging Childhood Respiratory Diseases (Research Notes on Flu, RSV and Covid-19)

As a triple threat of respiratory illnesses – flu, RSV and Covid-19 – sweeps the nation this holiday season, health officials are urging people to take precautions to protect themselves: get vaccinated, wash hands frequently and even mask up in certain circumstances.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he will recommend a return to masking in certain circumstances, as the US faces a triple threat of Covid-19, flu and RSV.

He reiterated that sentiment in an exit interview with NBC News, where he suggested that people should mask where appropriate, but was careful to say it’s only a recommendation.

Fauci is not talking about mandating anything. I would like to say that common sense would tell me that I really don’t want to spread it to someone who is a vulnerable member of my family.

“No, it shouldn’t be,” Fauci said. “I know sometimes when you walk in and you have a mask and nobody has a mask, you kind of feel guilty. You shouldn’t feel guilty.”

Almost two-thirds of Americans said they wore a mask whenever they went outside the home. The employer required masks for just over a quarter of respondents.

If Covid-19 cases continue, how to get people to wear masks without trying to make them do it is a dilemma for public health officials.

The last time Ipsos asked about support for mask requirements was in July, when 45% supported local government requirements, down from more than two-thirds support in January 2022.

The CDC’s latest community level map shows that 9% of counties in the country had a high risk of infections. People who live in those areas are encouraged to practice indoor masking. Generally, children under the age of 2 are not recommended to wear face coverings.

Facial Mask Recommendations for Flu Infectious Diseases: A State of the Art and a Problem in the United States

I don’t think mandates are a good idea in the United States, because you will get a lot of resistance and people will ignore it. Public health recommendations have to be acceptable,” he added.

The county has 258 new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people and 14.8 hospitalizations per 100,000 people but continues to stay below the “high” level of staffed Covid patient beds, at 6.9%, she said.

“We haven’t reached that super dangerous threshold where CDC has said ‘you really need to start worrying about your hospital system,’ but we’ve reached a threshold, and all of the data shows this, where there is too much transmission, and it’s creating a lot of risk. And the time to mitigate the risk is actually now,” Ferrer said.

Every community is considering the same information, considering whether they are nearing high levels and if they need to use universal masking again.

Now, I don’t think it is a bad idea to take the pure facts of the guidance and turn them into a political divide in community where elected officials may or may not wish to see universal masking reimplemented. She said that they’ll have to see if it enters the picture again. Some of the initial mitigation efforts have not drawn a lot of interest.

Over the past three weeks, New York’s flu hospitalizations have more than doubled, and lab-confirmed flu cases have nearly tripled, according to the letter.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/health/face-mask-recommendations-rsv-flu-covid/index.html

New Covid-19 Hospitalizations and Capacity for US County Counties: Commissioners of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“We encourage schools to utilize their local departments of health as a partner and resource in this work,” the commissioners said. We will make sure that all students in our state have a safe and healthy holiday season.

The CDC’s Covid-19 community level metrics for US counties are based on three things: new Covid-19 hospitalizations, hospital capacity and new Covid-19 cases. Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday the agency might include data on other respiratory viruses such as flu andRSV.

It is something we are looking into at the CDC. She said that people need not wait for CDC action in order to put a mask on.

Covid-19 hospitalizations are starting to tick up after Thanksgiving: More than 34,000 people were admitted to the hospital with Covid-19 in the past week, up 20% from the week prior, according to the CDC. The CDC’s forecasts predict a continued increase over the next month.

The ensemble forecasts show Covid deaths to remain stable for the next few weeks, after more than 1400 deaths were reported to the CDC in last week of November.

Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this past week that the simultaneous combination of viruses has been straining healthcare systems.

Walensky told All Things Considered that the center’s map show an orange area with a high infection rate.

Protecting High and Medium Level County Levels with Public Masks: Every State Map released on Friday recommends and recommends that people wear masks

To protect communities at the high levels, we recommend and recommend that they wear masks.

At least one high or medium level county was included in every state map released on Friday. Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia are the only U.S. jurisdictions where all of its counties have low community levels.

In New York City, health commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan on Friday advised New Yorkers to wear face coverings inside stores, public transit, schools, child care facilities, and other public shared spaces, especially when they are crowded.