Brian there on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone.

A COVID wave is upon us. A triple-demic wave is upon us.

Wastewater surveillance data in the United States suggests that we're in the midst of the

largest COVID surge since the very first Omicron spike two years ago.

But despite the surge in virus levels in wastewater, and we'll talk about why they measure

wastewater and what that means, the good news seems to be that hospitalizations and deaths, though rising compared to last fall

and summer, have remained lower than in previous waves.

But it does seem like half the people you know have been sick with something this winter already,

right?

So the official public health emergency may be over,

but COVID is very much still here. And so are some of the important metrics helping public

health officials track the spread of the virus and the other two flu and RSV. So we'll spend a few

minutes now talking about where we are with COVID and the

tripledemic and shedding some light on some of those significant metrics. We are with Dr. Daniel Griffin,

MD, PhD, infectious disease physician with a PhD also in molecular medicine, researcher

at Columbia, chief of the division of infectious disease

at Optum Health, president of the group Parasites Without Borders, which sounds like a bad thing,

but it's really a good thing, and co-host of the podcast this week in virology. Dr. Griffin,

always good of you to share your time and expertise. Welcome back to WNYC.

Oh, thank you, Brian. Always a pleasure to be invited on. And listeners, any questions on the current

COVID wave or RSV or the flu or anything related for Dr. Griffin. Welcome, as always, when he comes on,

212-433, WNYC, call or text, 212, 433-9692.

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