As the vacations approach and families gather for Thanksgiving, health officials are preparing for the beginning of the respiratory virus season and for January – when Donald Trump will return to the White House.

Several public health officials joined together Thursday to debate the importance and effectiveness of routine vaccinations as flu and RSV begin to surge nationwide and COVID will almost definitely follow suit.

The panel discussion, hosted by the Big Cities Health Coalition, a gaggle that works with the most important municipal health departments within the country, included Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody, and public health officials from Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Shelby County. Tennessee and Columbus, Ohio.

“Vaccines are one of the cheapest and easiest tools we have in our prevention armamentarium,” said Dr. Raynard Washington, director of the Mecklenburg County Health Department.

While all of them emphasized the effectiveness of vaccines and the importance of distributing the vaccines, public health officials also acknowledged the necessity for a brand new approach to communicating with the general public as misinformation and distrust of vaccines have risen in recent times amid the The pandemic has only increased, and the well-known vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is claimed to be Trump's nominee for secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Cody and the others emphasized the importance of a hyperlocal focus in the case of public health and meeting people where they’re.

“It's this kind of hyperlocal engagement that will help us combat any kind of misinformation or disinformation that exists,” Washington said.

“We need to understand what people are hearing, what people are doing with the information they have,” Cody said, “and I think our strategies are shifting away from telling to listening and understanding.”

Cody led the nation's first coronavirus lockdown within the Bay Area in March 2020, facing sharp criticism from some for the economic impact and praise from others for his part in curbing the spread of the deadly virus.

Despite the challenges, Cody said her agency is in higher shape than it was 4 years ago. “We faced a lot of headwinds during the pandemic, but we overcame them,” Cody said. “The infrastructure and trust we have built locally is more robust than before the pandemic.”

As for the present status of respiratory viruses in Santa Clara County? “COVID appears to be fairly low in our wastewater, however we are seeing an increase in flu and RSV,” she said. And while vaccine skeptics could also be taking more outstanding positions within the federal government, local data shows more residents are vaccinated now than at the moment last yr, based on Cody.

“Even though our rates are low, we are still doing better than last year,” Cody said.

Originally published: November 21, 2024 at 3:49 pm PST

Even before the COVID pandemic turned the world the wrong way up, public health officials and medical personnel urged people every fall to get vaccinated before the cold and cough season.

But now, as the times get shorter and the weather gets cooler, and respiratory virus season approaches, the chance is even higher when COVID can be in play. Although the virus has change into less deadly because it first spread in 2020, COVID was still chargeable for nearly 7,000 deaths within the Golden State last yr, greater than 15 times the variety of flu deaths expected in 2023, in line with data from the California Department of Public Health.

Before the pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention really helpful that everybody aged 6 months and older be vaccinated against influenza yearlywith a selected concentrate on the very young and elderly. Tens of 1000’s of individuals die of the flu yearly across the country, and in a nasty yr the figure was over 50,000.

Now the CDC recommends vaccination against COVID and flu for everybody 6 months and older. This is the second yr that an annually updated COVID vaccine will likely be released in the autumn, and health care providers are encouraging people to get each vaccines.

“Every year, a new variant of the virus circulates,” said Paul Waldron, an infectious disease doctor at Kaiser Permanente in San Jose. “That's always been the case with the flu and appears to be true for COVID as well,” he said. “Even if you've had the vaccine before, we recommend that you get both shots again.”

As preparations for the winter respiratory virus season begin, California is just recovering from this summer's stubborn COVID wave. Starting in May, positivity rates – the proportion of COVID tests that come back positive – began to rise rapidly, eventually peaking in early August. Now the The positivity rate has dropped from almost 13% to below 11%in line with the state's weekly data update on Friday.

While the typical variety of day by day COVID deaths was significantly lower than at first of the pandemic, it began to rise again in June and July, and was just over 20 deaths per day by early August. That was just months after the record low, when the state recorded its first day with no COVID deaths in April 2024.

With the surge in COVID cases last winter, the typical variety of deaths per day at its peak was around 30, dwarfing the typical of over 600 deaths in January 2021.

In anticipation of the upcoming cold season, Kaiser Permanente, other health care providers and pharmacies across the country are promoting the vaccines now that each annual formulations can be found.

Kaiser patients can now walk into any vaccination clinic in Northern California to get their flu and COVID shots without an appointment. Most insurance policy cover COVID-19 vaccines, in line with the state Department of Health, but check together with your doctor or local pharmacy for more information.

When vaccines first rolled out in California, COVID vaccination rates were high, but because the virus has change into less deadly, fewer persons are getting the updated vaccines. While higher vaccination rates mean fewer hospitalizations overall, doctors and health care providers are most concerned about older patients and people with compromised immune systems.

“The vaccines are really great at reducing the severity of infections,” said Dr. Waldron. “They prevent you from having to go to the hospital, especially if you're in the high-risk group.”

Originally published: September 15, 2024 at 5:45 am