Covid, flu and RSV: here's how to reduce your risk

Covid and flu cases are on the rise.

Covid no longer plays the dominant role it once did in most of our lives. But the risk of Covid – and other viruses – persists. This winter, experts expect cases, hospitalizations and deaths from viral illnesses to increase again.

The increase may have already started. Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths are on the rise over the past two weeks. The recovery resembles the trend we've seen in recent years after Thanksgiving, typically continuing through the holiday season and into the year after. (Check the number of cases in your area with the Times tracker.)

Flu cases are also on the rise. The C.D.C. ranks the vast majority of states as having “high” or “very high” activity for influenza and related illnesses. "Flu hospitalizations continue to be the highest we've seen at this time of year in a decade," agency director Rochelle Walensky said last week.

Cases and hospitalizations due to R.S.V., which usually causes cold symptoms but can sometimes be more severe, also increased earlier this fall. But they seem to have peaked already.

The infectious disease climate in the United States right now is not a picture of the demise of Covid, but of its fall alongside other endemic respiratory diseases in autumn and winter. In some years, Covid might be the worst of the bunch. In other cases, the flu or R.S.V. could be. "That's the reality we're going to live with in the future," said Dr. Celine Gounder, senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Le bulletin d 'today will focus on this new normal for Covid and other viruses.

Now fall and winter disease trends winter might sound familiar: as people gather for the holidays, and generally indoors to avoid the cold, respiratory viruses spread more easily — true for Covid, but also for flu and R.S.V.

The greatest risks are for the very old young.

Covid is still a threat, largely because that many people have not recently been immunized against vaccines or infections. But the virus is now largely a disease of the elderly, as David Wallace-Wells explained in Times Opinion: Americans 65 and older now account for 90% of deaths. (Some younger groups, particularly immunocompromised people, also remain vulnerable.)

R.S.V. and influenza often afflicts an additional population, striking both the very young and the elderly.

Influenza and R.S.V. have existed for a long time. They have been tamed in recent years, largely because widespread actions to prevent Covid, such as masking and social distancing, have also worked against them. But because many people have never been recently exposed to influenza or RSV, they are also more vulnerable. This allowed a return of the two viruses.

"The combination of flu and Covid for the elderly is going to mean a pretty tough winter for hospitals," said Gounder. “People talk about patients in the hallway – it wasn't uncommon, actually, before Covid. We will see more.

By now you probably know how to reduce your risk of Covid: get vaccinated and boost. When the virus is spreading rapidly, hide indoors and get tested regularly. If you get sick, self-isolate to avoid spreading the virus and try to get a