Well, the US is grappling with a quadruple wave of potentially serious viruses just as millions of Americans wrap up the holidays and head back to work. The Centers for Disease Control says cases of the flu COVID, RSV, and norovirus, or the stomach flu, began to rise just days before the holidays. 40 states are now reporting high or very high levels of illnesses, and those numbers will likely climb even higher as the US heads into peak flu season.
Dr. Slain Grounder is here with me in Studio 57. She's a CBS News medical contributor and editor at large for public health at KFF Health News. I mean, do we expect that this surge is because we all gathered, and that's sort of typical?
What is feeling a spike of all four, so we typically see flu cases start to go up in December, peak in February, and this is very much the pattern we're seeing again this year, very much driven by holiday gatherings, people traveling, and multigenerational gatherings with little kids around grandparents, so that pattern is not surprising.
Uh, COVID, we're seeing, uh, COVID cases go up a bit later than we saw last year, and so we still don't know exactly what COVID season, uh, quote-unquote, is going to be, uh, and then with respect to RSV, that one, you know, we typically see increasing over the winter months, and norovirus is called the winter stomach flu for a reason because, you know, we typically see, uh, transmission during the winter months.
Yeah, you and I got that, so hopefully that means we're done; we don't get any of the other three, right? That's how medicine and science work. All right. let's talk about about which of the viruses poses the biggest risk and.
I want to also ask you about vulnerable groups although you did mention some yeah so in terms of what poses the biggest risk uh it's really important to understand that covid is still not equivalent to the flu it is more deadly particularly in high-risk persons so to say that again yeah.
Co is not the flu everybody just says it's just like the flu I'm not even going to bother get your risk of hospitalization especially if you're a higher risk person is higher with Co than with the flu so if you're somebody who's older if you're immune compromised if you have a lot of underlying medical conditions particularly obesity and diabetes are are big risk factors and then if you're also at the very young end of the spectrum so uh for little kids uh starting at the age of six months of age you can start vaccinating and it's that those young infants who have very small.
Airways underdeveloped immune systems can also quickly get into trouble with a viral respiratory infection and when we get those shots we're not just protecting ourselves we're protecting those around us so when is the best time to get vaccinated well now if you have not been vaccinated yet get vaccinated now because we seeing the cases starting to go up now uh just in the last day.
I've had a couple colleagues friends been diagnosed with influenza so you we're definitely seeing it here in the community and while these you know one one thing I think that's really misunderstood with the vaccines is they don't prevent all infections but they do prevent you from getting really sick ending up in the hospital dying uh and a lot of people think why am I even getting this if I'm going to get sick anyway but it's that point that is so important do you want to get something that is going to knock you out for so many days and also again we're talking about protecting the whole.
Community right exactly and so even if you do get it it'll be a milder case you'll be able to get back to school or work more quickly if you've been vaccinated so that's really the benefit of doing that so the last time we were talking about norovirus you were talking about washing our hands I've taken that to heart.
I've got really dry hands right now but what what other what else is some really good advice for people who are trying to stay healthy look we can't be in a bubble anymore we have to go to work we have to go ride public transit well if you are sick you should ideally be staying home from school from work um if you have to go to school or work washing your hands especially if you have neuro virus is really important wearing a mask is still an option.
They do work if you wear them, um, and then if you're somebody who's involved in food preparation, you really need to be careful if you're sick, um, to be washing—ideally not doing food prep but washing your hands if you are—not sharing food with other people is another key one, and wiping down, you know, your kitchen counters, food prep surfaces, and all the things involved in in preparing the food okay. Dr. Sling Gounder, thank you. Stay healthy.
