SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – This holiday season people don't just have COVID-19 cases to worry about, as both COVID-19 and the flu are increasing at a surprisingly high rate.
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This increase could impact people's holiday celebrations if they don't think about precautionary steps to take to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.
"What we're seeing is a really dramatic increase in the start of the influenza season this year," said Dr. Dean Blumberg, health and infectious disease specialist with UC Davis Health on KCBS Radio’s "Ask an Expert" with Margie Shafer and Eric Thomas on Monday. "We're seeing it all over the U.S."
"Particularly in California there's very high activity," he said. "I think that's going to be our major concern this winter."
While COVID-19 cases are ticking up as well, it's not likely to create as much of a big wave as there was in the last two winters.
But there has been a marked increase in the number of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases, which isn’t likely to get better as the weather gets colder.
"Patients who are admitted to the hospital, many of them are being admitted for other reasons, screened for COVID-19 and found to be positive," said Blumberg, about the patients coming into UC Davis Health.
And in some places in Southern California, masking is being recommended once again although no mandates have taken effect yet.
"I think it just makes sense," he said. "There is enough COVID-19 going around and even people who are vaccinated may get breakthrough infections."
"Plus there's so much flu and RSV going around, I'd just rather stay healthy," added Blumberg.
But it's unclear how people would respond to new masking mandates after all this time. It's more likely at this stage in the pandemic to be left as an individual choice.
People should, however, really consider getting the bivalent booster. Only about 13% of the country’s population has received it.
It's especially concerning is only 33% of those aged 65 and older have gotten the new vaccine, despite the fact that there is data showing that it does have better protection against the new variants of the virus currently circulating.
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