What a ‘Tripledemic’ Means for Your Body

In 2020, and again in 2021, the dreaded twindemic never came. The worry among experts was that a winter COVID surge layered on top of flu season—or even, in worst-case scenarios, a flu outbreak of pandemic proportions—would push already strained hospitals to the brink. Thankfully, we got lucky. Flu season simply didn’t materialize in 2020: The United States recorded only about 2,000 cases, a jaw-dropping 110 times fewer than it had the season prior. Similar trends held for other respiratory viruses. In 2021, cases were way up from 2020, but still way down from typical pre-pandemic years.

Now our luck seems finally to have run out. Flu season has only just begun, and already. A massive wave of RSV is hitting the country, along with smaller parallel surges in rhinovirus and enterovirus. The result of all this is what my colleague Katherine J. Wu has “the worst pediatric-care crisis in decades.” Meanwhile, COVID cases and hospitalizations remain low around the country relative to earlier stages of the pandemic, but the coronavirus continues to kill about 350 Americans daily. The worry now is not a twindemic but a “.”