Eight U.S. states saw the most respiratory illness activity in the week leading up to New Year's Eve, maps from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show.
Alabama, the Carolinas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Tennessee—as well as New York City on its own—were deemed to be areas with the highest levels of infection in the week ending December 30, compared to periods when circulation of diseases such as COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza are low.
Many states across the contiguous U.S. had high or very high rates of respiratory illness, with the central Midwest, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, Delaware and Vermont having low to moderate infection rates.
The CDC said its evaluation was based on the percentage of visits to healthcare providers wherein a cough or sore throat, as well as a fever, were reported.
Emergency department visits due to COVID and influenza were elevated in all age groups, except school-age children. The viruses comprised 3 percent and 5.2 percent of all visits, respectively.
The uptick in infections is something health officials have expected during the winter months. Colder weather tends to lead to an increased spread of viruses and other infections because immunity is lower.
However, elevated infections of respiratory diseases such as COVID and influenza have led to some hospitals in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Washington, D.C., bringing in fresh mask mandates.
Week-by-week tracking of the three respiratory viruses nationally shows that infections with the flu have shot up from the start of December, going from 8.2 percent of tests coming back positive in the week ending December 9 to 17.5 percent in the week ending December 30.
COVID infections have continued to creep up over the winter, with a test positivity rate of 12.4 percent in the latest recorded week.
RSV infections climbed through October before appearing to peak at the end of November, and dropped off in the latter half of December. They most recently had a test positivity rate of 10.2 percent.
The levels of positive tests offer a slightly different picture of how people are fending off the winter respiratory diseases compared to modelling of the number of prescriptions filled for their medications.
Prescriptions for Tamiflu, given to fight influenza, peaked at 0.55 percent of prescriptions filled in the penultimate week of 2023, before dropping to 0.39 percent in the first week of January—despite infections appearing to soar—according to research by GoodRx, a healthcare transparency outfit.
"We saw a dip in fills for Tamiflu, but it's unlikely that the trend will persist," Tori Marsh, GoodRx's research director, told Newsweek. "We expect that fills will continue to rise similarly to previous years."
Prescriptions for COVID antiviral medications Paxlovid and Lagevrio also hit a peak in the final week of December, at 0.18 percent of all prescriptions, before dropping to 0.13 percent at the start of January. Marsh said this was "tracking in line with last year," when COVID prescriptions peaked at the end of 2022 before tailing off over the remainder of the winter months.
While there are two approved medications for RSV, in some cases patients with the virus are prescribed antibiotics to treat a secondary infection. Tracking of prescriptions for oral antibiotics show they rose in step with RSV infections—peaking at 1.61 percent two weeks before the end of the year—before falling to around 1.14 percent in January.
Marsh said the RSV season "peaked earlier than usual, at the end of December. Luckily, fills for these oral solution antibiotics are coming down and are [now] more in line with previous trends."
Prescriptions for influenza appear to be following the trend seen in the 2014-2015 winter, when fills peaked mid-December before dipping and peaking again toward the end of January. COVID prescriptions have not seen anywhere near the demand of 2022, when at their height comprised 0.35 percent of all prescriptions.
While demand for antibiotics tends to peak in late December and again in mid-February, based on previous winters' trends, this year prescriptions "don't seem to be tracking with previous RSV seasons, and peaked earlier and higher than normal," Marsh said.
However, she cautioned that "it's hard to say what this will mean for the future, and doesn't necessarily mean that fill trends will continue in line with previous trends."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Aleks Phillips is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter based in London. His focus is on U.S. politics and the environment. ... Read more
