There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays—and Spreading Infectious Disease

The good news on the tripledemic front as Christmas and New Year celebrations approach, according to multiple mainstream media and health department sources, is that new cases of respiratory syncytial virus and influenza have probably peaked. The correlating less-rosy news, as reported by Becker’s Hospital Review, is that packing large groups of people into inside spaces over the next week is likely to reverse the trend in pretty short order. The same goes for the potential to increase spread of COVID-19. The threat is being taken seriously enough for the Colorado Hospital Association to deactivate its combined hospital transfer center—a move intended to simplify transfer of patients with respiratory viruses. This is all likely to increase the number of patients who present to urgent care centers. Given the low rates of all viral transmission, not “just” COVID-19 when mask mandates were in place, it may be a good time reconsider reinstituting them on your own accord, at least temporarily, as this new period of high risk plays out.