COVID will likely reach levels in December not yet seen this year, combining with surges of flu, RSV, and other pathogens for a winter not so different from last year’s “tripledemic,” experts say.
Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology campus in Jonesboro, Ark., told Fortune that the U.S. is a “sitting duck” in the face of a “syndemic” winter.
It’s a term he prefers to “tripledemic,” as it acknowledges the impact of more than three pathogens on the healthcare system, and the need for policies to address the phenomenon, in addition to medical interventions.
“Strained hospital capacities, workforce exhaustion, burnout, a lack of effective therapeutic tools, poor communication, a lack of compliance [with COVID precautions], a lack of continuity planning, and the pervasive influence of social determinants of health” only make the nation’s delicate health infrastructure more fragile, he said.
It is a trifecta of lack of proper, affordable healthcare, lack of rational thinking, mostly in the conservative part ofthe population, and Republican politicians trying to undermine any efforts to fix those. That is the tripledemic that will kill many thousands of Americans. The US can be considered lucky that this will primarily hit those conservative circles that are instrumental in generating these circumstances.
Calling the state of the US healthcare system “strained, exhausted, and burnt out” is a bit of an understatement at this point. I just wonder how many people have to continue dying due to lack of adequate routine care before our country does anything about it.
I work on a small stepdown critical care unit, and we’re struggling to ration our few negative pressure rooms to accommodate the folks needing high flow nasal cannula oxygen or BiPAP from Covid, RSV, flu, and all the god damned holiday COPD/CHF exacerbations.
(Dammit, grandma, take your fucking lasix.)
