What You Need To Know About The Current Tripledemic

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2024

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Winter is upon us – and with the holiday travel and time spent indoors comes a triple threat of respiratory diseases: RSV, flu and COVID-19. Most of the country has been experiencing high or very high respiratory virus levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Host Regina G. Barber talks with NPR health correspondent Pien Huang about the annual 'tripledemic': what makes this winter different from winters past, who's most at risk and whether or not we're over the seasonal surge.

Want to hear about another health story making headlines? Email us about it at [email protected] — we might cover it on a future episode!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.0	Hey Shore Wavers, Regina Barbara here with health correspondent Ping Huang.
0:09.5	Hey Ping!
0:10.0	Hey, Ping!
0:11.0	Hey Regina! And as Health Correspondent Ping Pink you've been tracking all things
0:14.5	RSV and flu and now the COVID season this past few months right? Yeah absolutely and you are
0:21.6	welcome thank you let me tell you it is Absolutely and you are welcome. Thank you.
0:23.0	Let me tell you, it has not been a slow gig recently, Regina.
0:27.0	You know, a lot of people have been getting sick,
0:30.0	which is not unexpected at this time of year.
0:32.0	Most of the country has been having... which is not unexpected at this time of year.
0:32.5	Most of the country has been having high or very high respiratory virus levels
0:37.7	according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
0:40.6	And this is pretty common after the holidays when people have been traveling,
0:44.4	seeing loved ones, and sharing their respiratory viruses along the way.
0:48.6	Probably news tonight about respiratory illnesses with vaccination rates low.
0:52.8	The agency says a new variant of Omicron is responsible for those cases.
0:56.8	Alarming triple threat across the country, the vast majority of states are reporting high or very high level of the flu, COVID in R.S.
1:04.0	This COVID season has been nowhere near as bad as when the Omer Con variant first hit two years ago.
1:09.6	Hospitalizations and deaths are much lower than they were even last year, but COVID is still the most serious
1:15.3	respiratory virus out there right now, and we can't forget that a lot of this COVID surge that
1:20.0	we've been seeing is tied to a new variant.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.