United States: The respiratory illnesses – influenza, coronavirus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) have caused misery across Michigan again; the people are suffering from disease and flooding the offices of doctors, urgent care sites and emergency departments to seek treatment. Due to this, the hospital beds are filled, and the health care centers and professionals are burdened.

The concern was shared by the state’s chief medical executive, Dr Natasha Bagdasarian, during an interactive session with Detroit Free Press. Dr Bagdasarian stated, “At the moment, I would say we are in the thick of it. We’ve got lots of COVID circulating, lots of flu, and RSV as well.”

Health officials have been evaluating the viral activity across the United States by examining hospital admissions, case positivity, and COVID-19 tests through wastewater testing and other data.

Furthermore, while emphasizing the cases related to RSV, Bagdasarian told Free Press, “With RSV, it’s possible that we have plateaued. The rates are not as high for RSV hospitalizations as they were last year.”

She also added, “And for influenza and COVID, those numbers still look like they’re on an upward trajectory… I think we have yet to see the worst for COVID and flu.”

Flu, COVID activity upsurges in Michigan

According to the list shared by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Michigan falls in the list of states showing high flu activity. Reportedly, during the last week of December, the majority of cases reported were of influenza A.

The latest data revealed that as of Monday, around 1,200 Michiganders were hospitalized because of COVID-19, according to data from the state health department. This data showed that the cases increased by 35.7 percent in a month, from 884.

In this regard, Dr Bagdasarian stated, “Our COVID hospitalization rates look a little bit higher than they were last winter, and our flu rates are not quite as high as they were at the peak of last winter. If I had to say which one is really the dominant virus right now, it does look like it’s COVID again.”

Dominance of JN.1 subvariant! 

The JN.1 subvariant has been dominating the United States and in the Midwest region, according to the details by the US CDC. The variant has been increasing at a great pace, because of which it was classified as the ‘variant of interest’ by the World Health Organisation (WHO). In addition to this, the health agency mentioned that for now, there is no evidence that suggests that the variant will be higher than the other circulating variants.

The health experts have outlined that the COVID-19 peaks have not yet reached up to the levels of the previous pandemic peaks.

Comparatively, earlier, in January 2022, when omicron was the most dominating strain of COVID-19, as many as 4,600 Michiganders were hospitalized across the state.

Hospital is stressed

The hospital admissions are not as high as they were during the peak pandemic season, but the staff is still stressed and concerned after witnessing the number of patients seeking medical assistance due to COVID-19, flu, and RSV. A similar concern has been raised by the vice president for medical affairs for Corewell Health in western Michigan – Dr Charles Gibson, according to the reports by Free Press.

While addressing the latest scenario, Gibson was quoted saying, “That’s the real bugaboo.”

He also said, “It makes it quite tight around here because you have got to have a bed for every patient, a physical bed. And then, more importantly, you have to have appropriate staffing to be able to take care of all those patients,” according to the reports by Free Press.

Further, he continued, “That also backs up all of the other stuff that tends to come in — the broken legs and the car crash injuries and the person that’s having chest pain or shortness of breath not related to a respiratory illness. … We still have to be able to take care of all those types of patients, too.”

Dr Gibson, who works for Corewell’s 21 hospitals, highlighted that it has become a major deal that the capacity of the hospital gets hit, and more and more patients are entering to seek medical assistance.

He stated, according to Free Press, “We’re seeing an influx into our care spaces — whether it’s the inpatients in hospitals that are a little bit sicker and need to be admitted coming to the ED, our walk-in clinics, our primary care offices. They are all at higher volumes across the board. We’re certainly feeling the impact of these respiratory illnesses.”