Area RSV cases show decline

Paul B. Johnson, The High Point Enterprise, N.C.
·2 min read

Dec. 9—TRIAD — A crush of cases from the flu and a respiratory virus called RSV may have reached its peak, but COVID-19 could be gearing up for another resurgence, an infectious disease specialist said.

In the last two or three weeks, RSV cases in young children have declined noticeably, said Dr. Christopher Ohl, an infectious disease expert at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem, during a press briefing Thursday.

The trend with RSV is a welcome development given the heavier-than-normal number of infections here and across the country earlier this fall.

"We've had a devil of a time with RSV," Ohl said.

Unlike with COVID-19 or the flu, there's no vaccine for RSV, though medical researchers are hopeful there may be a vaccine by this time next year.

Ohl said the same encouraging trend is happening with flu cases in the last two or three weeks, though the drop in flu cases isn't as far along as with RSV.

But Ohl said that COVID-19 cases are beginning to increase.

Earlier this week, Dr. David Priest, senior vice president and chief safety, quality and epidemiology officer for Novant Health, also said that COVID-19 cases have ticked up at Novant medical centers and clinics in the wake of gatherings in close quarters for the Thanksgiving holiday, just as happened the past two years.

"We expected a rise in cases during colder months, and we believe we will continue to see that," he said.

The majority of COVID-19 cases at Novant medical centers and clinics involve patients who either aren't vaccinated or haven't had booster shots, Priest said.

Ohl said while COVID-19 cases may rise into the winter, he doesn't expect a dramatic spike in infections as happened last winter. Ohl said there is a greater percentage of the population now that has gotten vaccinated or developed some level of immunity to COVID-19 from prior infections.

Figures from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services show a recent rise in COVID-19 cases but also reflect how much better the situation is now compared to this past winter: The number of COVID-19 cases statewide nearly doubled from 6,745 for the week ending Nov. 26 to 11,055 for the week ending Dec. 3, but that is dwarfed by the 235,685 cases that there were the week ending Jan. 15 during the spike last winter.

The number of patients hospitalized in North Carolina rose from 569 for the week ending Nov. 26 to 656 for the week ending Dec. 3, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. But that's far less than at the height of the surge last winter, when 5,049 patients with COVID-19 were hospitalized for the week ending Jan. 29.

pjohnson@hpenews.com — 336-888-3528 — @HPEpaul