YAHOO
California’s hospitals are getting busier with more COVID-19 and flu patients, some of whom are suffering from both viruses at the same time.
The simultaneous sickness is another wrinkle in an already hectic respiratory virus season. Although hospitals are not nearly as crowded as during the emergency phase of the pandemic, they are becoming increasingly so — with Los Angeles County recently entering the “medium” COVID-19 hospitalization category outlined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the first time this winter.
“Some of these patients are testing positive for more than one virus — influenza definitely likes to travel with COVID. [And] we’re seeing an outbreak of RSV,” said Dr. Daisy Dodd, an infectious disease specialist with Kaiser Permanente Southern California.
The viral cocktail could also include coronavirus or flu with RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, simultaneously. Sometimes a common cold virus, like rhinovirus, is in the mix.
And it’s not just the very young and the very old who are getting hit with a double whammy of disease — younger and middle-aged adults have also been afflicted. Dodd said she’s seen some patients reporting fevers lasting more than a week.
“Now it seems like everyone has this hacking cough that doesn’t want to go away,” she said. “It’s making them fairly sick and … it’s not very gentle.”
For many of the patients who need medical attention, “they’re miserable. No doubt about it.”
It’s hard to say why doctors are seeing a number of viral co-infections this winter, experts say.
“Is it that one lowers the immunity and allows them to catch the other one easily? Don’t know the answer,” Dodd said. “But we’re seeing a lot of ‘double whammies’ going around…
