But vaccination rates for Covid, flu, and RSV remain low, worrying healthcare providers.

Welcome to Not a Doctor. I’m Melody Schreiber, a journalist and the editor of What We Didn’t Expect: Personal Stories About Premature Birth. I’m not a doctor, or a scientist, or really an expert of any kind. I just like to ask questions and try to find the answers to them.

Happy new year! I hope yours is off to an excellent start.

All of the snow last week brought chaos to our routine, but my first-grader especially was thrilled to break D.C.’s 728-day-streak without an inch or more of snow. We had a good time romping in the woods.

In less bucolic news, virus season is in full swing right now. I published an article with The Guardian a week ago, and I wanted to give an update here.

Mask policies return in US as respiratory viruses threaten to strain hospitals

Cases of and hospitalizations for respiratory viruses, including Covid, the flu and RSV, continue rising across the US, and some health systems have begun returning to mask and limited-visitation policies as health officials warn that hospital capacity may become strained.

Vaccination rates for all three illnesses remain low, despite the efficacy of updated flu and Covid boosters and the entrance of new RSV vaccines for older and pregnant people.

🌡 RSV

Since I wrote this piece, RSV hospitalizations have continued to rise, getting dangerously close to last year’s peak. This is particularly heartbreaking because this year should be very different.

For the first time, we have vaccines for pregnant people (which protects not just them but also their babies in the first months of life) as well as two different vaccines for older people, who are at particular risk of getting very sick from RSV. Yet only 17% of adults 60 and up have received the new RSV vaccines.

We also have highly effective monoclonal antibodies to protect babies, for whom RSV is extremely dangerous. But there were massive shortages of this treatment; more doses are only now arriving in pediatricians’ offices.

“It’s really sad,” said Anita Patel, a critical care specialist at Children’s national hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at the George Washington University school of medicine. “There was a dramatically reduced supply of Beyfortus, and a lot of people that needed it and wanted it couldn’t get it.”

It’s very difficult to watch these high rates of hospitalizations knowing that so many of them could have been prevented, particularly since RSV in babies can lead to lifelong asthma issues. My fingers are crossed for next year, when hopefully the supply of monoclonal antibodies — and communication about vaccines — will improve.

🌡 Covid

Cases of Covid are now on the decline after reaching their second-highest peak of the entire pandemic, according to wastewater. Hospitalizations from Covid are beginning to drop; hopefully the pattern holds.

Death rates usually take longer to fall, and that’s the case now; in the past week, deaths increased by more than 10 percent. As of December 23, which is the last week for which the CDC shows complete data, more than 1,700 Americans were dying from Covid every week.

Focusing only on short-term cases, hospitalizations, and deaths overlooks a major public health concern: Long Covid.

Waves of illness like these can have long-lasting health effects. More than 5% of American adults are currently experiencing long Covid symptoms, and 14.3% have ever experienced long Covid, according to the CDC.

The new Covid booster seems to work extremely well — but only 17 percent of Americans eligible to get it have received it. That figure is staggeringly low.

🌡 Flu

Flu is also stable or declining in most states, though experts point out that we often have a double peak, when it seems like flu is subsiding and then comes back with a vengeance. Hopefully, this downward trend continues.

Stay safe out there, friends. As always, please leave a comment or email me (melodyaschreiber@gmail.com) if you have any questions or thoughts, and if you know someone who might appreciate this newsletter, please forward it to them!