By Caitlin Tilley, Dailymail.Com Health Reporter
Updated December 18, 2023 21:47, December 18, 2023 22:28
- Infection and hospitalization rates for coronavirus, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus are rising across the U.S., and vaccination rates are low.
- In some parts of the country, children’s hospital beds are already nearly as full as last year.
- Read more: It’s not coronavirus now! CDC says it’s tracking new coronavirus variants that have tripled in one month
The spread of new, more contagious coronavirus variants could force hospitals and emergency rooms to ration care by the end of this month.
The JN.1 variant is responsible for the increase in cases, according to the CDC. They now account for up to 29% of coronavirus cases, a sharp increase from less than 1% in early November.
The coronavirus remains the biggest factor in hospitalizations, with more than 23,000 new admissions in the week ending December 9, the fifth straight week of increases and the highest level since February. There is.
The CDC warned that the strain on the health care system means “patients with other serious health conditions may be delayed in receiving treatment.”
Making the situation even more unstable, hospitalizations due to influenza are also on the rise. New hospitalizations reached 7,090 in the week ending December 9, up from 5,816 in the week ending December 2.
The CDC predicts that up to 18,000 influenza hospitalizations could be reported in the last week of December.
For the week ending December 9th, Influenza incidence At this time last year, the rate was 36 per 100,000 people, compared to 8 per 100,000 in the United States.
The number of people infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is also increasing. Louisiana, South Carolina and New Mexico have very high levels of respiratory illness, as do Mississippi and Alabama, according to the CDC.
The RSV hospitalization rate for the week ending December 9 was 2.3 per 100,000 people, compared to 3.3 at this time last year.
Whitney Marvin, a pediatric intensive care specialist at Sean Jenkins Children’s Hospital at the Medical University of South Carolina, told The Washington Post that this year is the worst RSV season in memory.
Children are more likely to become seriously ill and spend more time in hospital, and the RSV season is starting later than last year, meaning the RSV outbreak overlaps with the outbreak of other winter respiratory viruses, including influenza.
Dr. Marvin’s hospital has had to coordinate with other hospitals in the state and in neighboring North Carolina to divert patients.
“In some parts of the country, hospital beds for children are already nearly as full as they were this time last year,” the CDC said.
“If this trend continues, emergency departments and hospitals could be overwhelmed again by the end of this month.”
Emergency room visits among school-age children nearly doubled last week, according to emergency room data released Wednesday.
The spike is largely due to an increase in flu cases after statistics plateaued in the lead-up to Thanksgiving.
But with increased travel and family gatherings, as well as colder weather forcing people to spend more time indoors, the incidence of respiratory illnesses could rise further.
In a situation similar to last year, emergency department visits due to influenza outnumbered those due to the new coronavirus in most age groups for the first time in months.
The only people over 65 are still infected with the coronavirus at a higher rate than the flu.
And nursing homes have recently been dealing with a surge in coronavirus cases.
The increase in cases is likely due to the JN.1 variant, which experts believe may be more contagious, the CDC said. He recently announced that he was tracking him.
The agency estimates that this variant accounted for up to nearly 30% of coronavirus cases in the United States in the first week of December, up from 9% at the end of November.
The CDC said it is currently the fastest growing variant in the country and its presence will continue to increase.
The new variant was first detected in the United States in September and accounted for just 0.1% of coronavirus cases in October.
The CDC believes that because of its rapid spread, it is either highly contagious or capable of evading the human immune system.
Still, there is no evidence that this variant puts people at increased risk, nor is there any indication that it is more serious than previous variants.
JN.1 is very similar to the previous BA.2.86 variant, but has only one mutation in the virus’s spike protein.
An expert group organized by the World Health Organization concluded this month that the changes in JN.1 are not dramatic enough to warrant revisions to this season’s vaccines, but that SOT is not effective against this strain. He emphasized that it was low.
The CDC also warns about overall low vaccination rates for COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus.
There are about 8 million fewer flu shots than last year’s vaccination levels, according to insurance claims data.
Flu vaccinations for children are also down about 5 percentage points compared to last year, according to CDC data.
In nursing homes, only a third of residents and less than one in 10 staff have received the latest coronavirus vaccination.
“It will be very difficult or impossible to make up the shortfall,” vaccine manufacturers said at a recent stakeholder meeting with the CDC.
The number of daily hospitalizations due to coronavirus increased by 3% in the first week of December, according to CDC data.
There were 23,432 people hospitalized in the week ending December 9, according to the latest available data.
This is lower than the 34,932 people hospitalized during the same period last year.
Deaths from coronavirus remain low, at 723 in the week to December 9, compared with 3,035 at this time last year.