WSJ With Covid-19 here to stay alongside flu and RSV, wintertime illnesses have become harder to dodge.
Covid-19 is settling in as a wintertime fixture, and infections are expected to rise again as the weather cools and holiday gatherings pile up. The virus is on a collision course with the seasonal scourges of flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which are circulating again after the pandemic disrupted their spread.
The risk? More infections, more disruptions to schools, work and holidays and more strain on hospitals than before the pandemic. Covid has raised the baseline for winters to come.
“It’s going to be a new normal. It’s going to be three different viruses instead of two,” said Catherine Brown, Massachusetts’ state epidemiologist.
When Covid arrived, it threw the usual rhythm of respiratory infections into turmoil. Covid cases surged, while mitigation measures including school shutdowns and social distancing helped sideline flu and RSV.
Those familiar cold-weather foes bounced back last year. Now, RSV infections are taking off again, and flu activity is increasing in most of the U.S. Covid hospitalizations appear to be edging up, too.
“This may be the most normal, whatever normal means, season that we’re going to see for some time,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.