According to the latest weekly update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), COVID-19, seasonal influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity continue to increase across the country, with COVID wastewater detections reaching high levels. 

COVID-19 is still causing a low number of people to seek emergency department care, but numbers are increasing. RSV and flu are also increasing. 

We predict COVID-19 illness will continue to increase in the coming weeks as it usually does in the winter.

"We predict COVID-19 illness will continue to increase in the coming weeks as it usually does in the winter," the CDC said. "COVID-19 activity is increasing in most areas of the country, with high COVID-19 wastewater levels and increasing emergency department visits and laboratory percent positivity.”

RSV activity remains high, with pediatric hospitalizations increasing across most of the country, the CDC said. 

Flu positivity up 12%

Though hospital visits for flu are still moderate, flu positivity increased by 12% in the week ending on December 21. Influenza A, H1N1 and H3N2, were the predominant viruses reported.

Of note, five pediatric deaths associated with seasonal influenza virus infection were reported this week, bringing the 2024-2025 season total to nine pediatric deaths.

“CDC estimates that there have been at least 3.1 million illnesses, 37,000 hospitalizations, and 1,500 deaths from flu so far this season,” the CDC said.

The addition of macrolides for empiric treatment of patients hospitalized with moderate and high-severity community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) was not associated with improved clinical outcomes, according to a population-level study published this week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Using electronic medical record data from 8,872 adults who were hospitalized with CAP in Oxfordshire, England, from January 1, 2016 through March, 19, 2024, and received initial treatment with amoxicillin or co-amoxiclav, researchers from the University of Oxford examined the effect of adjunctive macrolides on 30-day all-cause mortality, time to hospital discharge, and changes in Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score. While guidelines from the British Thoracic Society and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommend combining macrolides with beta-lactam antibiotics for moderate and high-severity pneumonia to provide coverage of atypical pathogens, existing studies have yielded conflicting evidence on efficacy.

Benefits should be weighed against risk of resistance, side effects

Among 3,239 (36.5%) and 5,633 (63.5%) patients who received baseline amoxicillin or co-amoxiclav, 606 (18.7%) and 1,821 (32.3%) received additional macrolide antibiotics, respectively. After adjustments using inverse probability treatment weighting to address confounding by baseline severity, the researchers found no evidence of an association between the use of additional macrolides and 30-day mortality, with marginal odds ratios of 1.05 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.75 to 1.47) for amoxicillin with versus without a macrolide and 1.12 (95% CI, 0.93 to 1.34) for co-amoxiclav with versus without a macrolide.

There was also no evidence that the addition of macrolides produced differences in time to discharge among those receiving baseline amoxicillin (restricted mean days lost +1.76 [-1.66 to +5.19]) or co-amoxiclav (+0.44 [-1.63 to +2.51]) or that macrolide use was associated with SOFA score decreases (marginal difference with amoxicillin +0.03 [- 0.19 to +0.25]; co-amoxiclav -0.06 [-0.19 to +0.06]). The results were consistent across varying levels of CAP severity.

The researchers also noted that atypical pathogens were rarely identified.

"Our findings suggest that the benefits of empirical macrolide therapy should be weighed against the risk of resistance and side-effects," they wrote.

One year after becoming available for older Americans and pregnant women, receptive public opinion of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines is growing, according to the latest poll from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. 

The poll was conducted in November 2024 and shows 52% of adults think the vaccine given to pregnant individuals to protect their infants from RSV is effective, up 10 percentage points from 42% in October of 2023. 

In the October 2023 survey, 54% of poll respondents said the RSV vaccine was effective for older adults, and that percentage is now 61%.

The poll results come in the wake of the 2024 presidential election and Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, to head the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Only 65% think COVID vaccine is safe

When asked about vaccine confidence for a number of immunizations, 86% of respondents said the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) is safe, up from 81% in October 2023. Eighty-three percent said the annual flu shot is safe, a number unchanged from 2023. 

Importantly, 90% of respondents said they would recommend a child in their household to get the MMR vaccine, 88% said they would recommend the polio vaccine, and 85% said they would recommend their child receive the Tdap vaccine. 

Only 65% of those polled in November said the COVID-19 vaccine was safe, however. 

New chronic wasting disease (CWD) detections were reported this week in Wyoming and Alabama.

In Wyoming, officials with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department confirmed the presence of CWD in a dead cow elk from Elk Hunt Area 84, which is located in the Jackson region in the northwest part of the state. The department said the area has no surrounding CWD-positive elk areas, but its corresponding deer area (Deer HA 152) has had previous CWD detections.

CWD was first identified in free-ranging mule deer in southeastern Wyoming in 1985 and is now found in deer and elk across most of the state. The disease is caused by misfolded infectious proteins called prions, which are extremely resilient and can persist in the environment for years. CWD can spread from animal to animal and through environmental contamination.

Alabama reports ninth CWD case

The CWD detection in Alabama was in a white-tailed deer harvested by a hunter in Colbert County in the northwest part of the state, according to an update from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR). It’s the first case of CWD detected in Colbert County and brings the total number of CWD positive detections in the state to nine.

ADCNR officials say the detection has resulted in an expansion of the state's CWD management zone to include all of Colbert, Lauderdale, and Franklin counties.

"I would like to thank our hunters for submitting their harvest samples for testing," ADCNR Commissioner Chris Blankenship said in a news release. "They are our most important partners in the management of this disease in Alabama."

While no human CWD cases have been reported, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization advise against eating meat from sick cervids and urge taking precautions when handling carcasses.