BALTIMORE, MD, December 8, 2022 – New audio is available for media use featuring Julie Swann, the department head and A. Doug Allison Distinguished Professor of the Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at NC State University. At both NC State and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Swann is an affiliate faculty member in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering. She speaks about the challenges of the Tri-demic (RSV, Flu and Covid). This content is provided by INFORMS, the largest association for the decision and data sciences. What follows are four questions and responses. These responses were provided on December 7, 2022.
Question 1: What is the tri-demic?
Time Cue: :35, Soundbite Duration: :15
“The tri-demic is an outbreak of 3 respiratory viruses simultaneously. Specifically, we have RSV circulating at the same time as the virus that causes covid, and influenza in the United States.”
Question 2: What are health officials and hospitals seeing at present with regard to RSV, flu and Covid cases?
Time Cue: :55, Soundbite Duration: 1:26
“We know that Covid is continuing to circulate in the United States in addition in Fall 2022. We have seen an increase in the cases and hospitalizations associated with RSV especially in children and sometimes in older adults. We have also seen in Fall of 2022 a marked increase in influenza activity and in hospitalizations associated with flu. This is both an increase in terms of much higher than we would expect at this point in time, and it also seems to have arisen earlier than influenza would normally come in a season in the US.There are several reasons that we have an intersection of viruses all hitting at the same time. One is that we know behaviors and when people are inside gathering in places gathering for holidays that respiratory viruses can circulate. In addition to that, there were for the last couple of years not as many people who were exposed to RSV and influenza. And now this large susceptible population is susceptible to those viruses. One of the reasons that we care when all three of these viruses are circulating at the same time is that they may all be putting demands on our hospital systems. That's it.”
Question 3: What must public health officials do to mitigate the impact of a severe tri-demic?
Time Cue: 02:31, Soundbite Duration: :50
“There are many stakeholders who are involved in mitigating the impacts of the tri-demic that we're currently experiencing. Public Health officials are continuing to ask people to vaccinate including getting up to date on their Covid boosters, making sure that they're getting influenza vaccine. Public Health officials also help remind people the value of testing, or protecting those who are most vulnerable, such as in our family or community when we're gathering with them over the holidays. Then one other role where public Health officials and hospitals are closely involved is in managing the capacity that's available in hospitals are closely involved is in managing the capacity that’s available in hospitals and making sure that we have, both enough beds, and enough personnel to staff the beds in the hospitals.”
Question 4: What should members of the public do now to mitigate their own health risks during a tri-demic?
Time Cue: 03:31, Soundbite Duration: 1:37
“I encourage everyone to consider getting vaccinated against the diseases that they can right now, especially that includes influenza and getting up to date on Covid boosters. We know this year that the influenza vaccine is a good match for the variants that are circulating, so it can be effective particularly at decreasing hospitalizations. There are also members of the public who they themselves or their household, may have compromised immunity or may have weakened systems, and so those households should be careful about the interactions that they have, making sure that they're in well ventilated spaces, using face coverings or masks wear appropriate, consider getting tested if necessary or if useful and think about how many different people they're in contact with over the course of the upcoming weeks. For RSV, members of the public should also be aware that if they have children or others who may be at greater risk that they consult with medical personnel when appropriate and when symptoms have become more severe. We also need to think about timing. A lot of gatherings occur at the end of Thanksgiving, at the end of December, and in early January, and then people come back to workplaces and schools in January. So, we will try to make sure that we don’t increase the burden on our hospitals and healthcare system, particularly in late December and early January.”
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Ashley Smith
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Catonsville, MD
[email protected]
443-757-3578