The summer heat has just begun to let up – yet people across the country are falling sick with symptoms usually reserved for the winter.
If you’ve noticed waves of colleagues out sick or in office with a cough, runny noses and fatigue, you’re not alone.
The US is reporting continued high levels of Covid again after an already record-setting summer for the disease – affecting everyone from President Biden to New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
And a perfect storm of poor immunity from the lockdowns and social distancing combined with low vaccination rates means old viruses are causing more severe illnesses, stretching past normal cold and flu season.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams tested positive for Covid virus in September 2024. He’s one of 16 percent of people who have tested positive for the disease, according to CDC data
President Biden tested positive for Covid shortly after his debate with former President Trump, at the beginning of the summer corona virus surge
Dr. Eve Elizabeth Pennie, general practitioner and contributor to DrugWatch told DailyMail.com: ‘It definitely feels like more people are getting sick lately, and there’s a good reason for that.’
Dr Pennie explained the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 disrupted seasonal cold and flu patterns, meaning people weren’t exposed to the virus for a long period of time.
This means that when people returned to their normal lives, their immune systems were weaker, and contacting these viruses made them sicker than it would’ve.
Dr Pennie added: ‘This means more people are getting sick as our bodies re-adjust.’
Now, as people are adjusting to the new normal, COVID is becoming more contagious as it evolves from person to person and there is still a gap in the number of people getting vaccinated.
This, combined with more opportunities for illnesses to spread as kids return to school and workers come back to the office from vacation, makes for an uptick in illnesses, Dr Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist and Chief Medical Officer at Amazon Pharmacy told DailyMail.com.
Dr Gupta said: ‘Late summer, early fall, is a really interesting time for the spread of infectious disease… There’s all sorts of intermixing.’
National wastewater surveillance shows that levels of COVID-19 virus circulating are currently ‘high’ – particularly in the West and Midwest – in states like California, Nevada, Illinois and Kansas.
This month, the CDC reported the percentage of all people who took a COVID test that were positive for the virus reached 16.3 percent.
This is up from historical rates. In July 2020, 7.5 percent of people who tested for virus were positive.
Still, the virus has become less deadly over time, thanks in part to emerging treatments and vaccines. But as people live with the disease, they’re able to spread it more easily.
And as the disease passes from person to person, it’s also evolving to become more contagious. Dr Gupta said: ‘I’m concerned that we’ve entered a space where we have a series of threats that seem like they’re rapidly evolving.’
But right now, it’s more than just Covid, doctors said. This season, cold, flu, H1N1 and other viruses, like Respiratory syncytial virus, have been going around, Dr Pennie said, beleaguering people’s already battered immune system’s.
Searches for the phrase ‘common cold’ have also been steadily increasing over the summer, reaching heir peak today. Likewise, searches for ‘Do I have flu’ have also been up and down over the summer months – hitting a more steady incline beginning at August 29th.
This is because the virus is evolving to become more and more contagious, Dr Gupta said.
There were an estimated 1565 deaths from COVID in the US in the last half of August, according to the CDC.
Dr Gupta said: ‘That’s a big deal. And I suspect that number is going to climb pretty significantly as we enter the depth of the winter.
Coupled with a flu season that I suspect will continue to look worse than it did on average pre pandemic, because less people are getting vaccinated for all things.’
Covid has also had an effect on the severity of cold and flu season. Getting sick with one of these viruses makes you more likely to get sick with another virus or bacteria. This in turn makes your likelihood of becoming seriously sick higher.
Dr Pennie said: ‘The pandemic changed how we interact with viruses. During COVID, masking and social distancing drastically reduced the spread of common cold and flu viruses.
Rates of immunization have decreased overall since the pandemic, making people more susceptible to common viruses. In addition, getting sick with one of these bugs can weaken your immune system, making you more likely to catch a different sickness, creating an ‘additive effect’, Dr Gupta said
But now that those measures have relaxed, viruses return at different times of the year and sometimes in stronger waves.’
In addition, since the pandemic, widespread vaccine hesitancy seems to have increased.
Actual rates prove difficult to estimate – but University of Chicago researchers said between 15 and 46 percent of American adults are likely hesitate to get the COVID vaccine and boosters, and may have similar attitudes to other immunizations.
This suggests people may also missing out on vaccines long considered safe and effective, like the flu and whooping cough, Dr Gupta said.
CDC data shows that vaccination rates for flu have been consistently lower in 2024 than in the three years previous.
In the 2021-2022 flu season, 176million doses of the flu vaccine were distributed – but in the 2023-2024 season, there were 158million vaccines distributed.
Right now, overall flu rates are low – effecting an estimated 168 Americans. Thus far, there have been 35million cases, 400,000 hospitalizations and 25,000 deaths.
This is higher than in the 2021-2022 season, when some lockdowns were still in place, and total cases were estimated by the CDC to be near 9.4million, there were 74,000 hospitalizations and around 5,000 deaths.
There have also been an uptick in vaccine hesitancy in individual states against vaccines required by public schools – like for pertussis, the virus behind whooping cough.
This disease was nearly eradicated by a vaccine created in the 1940s, but has been ravaging communities in recent years since vaccine rates have loosened.
The CDC’s Influenza Vaccine Doses Distributed shows rates of flu virus, as reported by private manufacturers
In Idaho, during the 2022-2023 school year roughly 81 percent of kindergarteners met federal public school requirements for vaccinations – the lowest percentage in the nation, where the average rate is 93 percent.
In Alaska roughly 1,200 students out of 44,000 have sought out vaccination exemptions.
As a result, now, both states are now dealing with whooping cough outbreaks. It’s become so dire as to kill one baby.
Nationally, this means that case rates of pertussis in one week in August were four times higher than the were last year.
Vaccines work by introducing a bit of a damaged or fragmented virus into your body, teaching your immune system to be on the lookout for that particular invader, so that it can fight it off more easily.
Vaccination doesn’t always prevent people from contracting a virus, but it does help people get less sick overall, Dr Gupta said, and is widely considered safe.
This year, the CDC recommended that everyone six months and older to get a flu and COVID vaccine by the end of October.
The flu virus this year protects against three different strains of flu. The Mayo Clinic recommends getting the flu vaccine before the end of October – say pregnant people and children under nine may benefit from getting the immunization earlier.
‘The timing depends on your personal risk factors and what’s happening in your community, but getting vaccinated earlier can provide crucial protection as the virus season kicks into gear,’ Dr Pennie said.
In addition to immunization, Dr Pennie recommends staying hydrated and getting good rest, regularly washing your hands and wearing a mask, if you feel comfortable doing so, in high traffic areas where there might be sick people.
