COVID-19, RSV and flu cases all decline in Erie County. Is this mini-surge finished?

David Bruce, Erie Times-News
·3 min read

A holiday mini-surge of COVID-19, flu and RSV may be winding down well before Valentine's Day.

Case totals for all three respiratory illnesses declined last week, according to data from the Erie County Department of Health. COVID-19 hospital admissions among county residents also dropped for the week ending Jan. 6, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reported.

"We're not out of the woods yet, but the curves are all going along with the historical patterns for the season," said Jim Donnelly, R.N., UPMC Hamot's chief nursing and quality officer.

Jim Donnelly, R.N., UPMC Hamot's chief nursing and quality officer, gives a COVID-19 vaccine to Hamot nurse Mackenzie Troyan in this December 2020 file photo. Donnelly said the recent 'triple whammy' of COVID-19, flu and RSV appears to be on the decline.
Jim Donnelly, R.N., UPMC Hamot's chief nursing and quality officer, gives a COVID-19 vaccine to Hamot nurse Mackenzie Troyan in this December 2020 file photo. Donnelly said the recent 'triple whammy' of COVID-19, flu and RSV appears to be on the decline.

Erie County, along with much of the country, has experienced a triple whammy of COVID-19, flu and RSV since early December.

Though the spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations pales in comparison to the surges during the early years of the pandemic, the December case total for county residents was the highest reported in 15 months, according to the Erie County Department of Health.

"What we have been seeing recently has been two groups of COVID patients," said Dr. Howard Nadworny, a Saint Vincent Hospital infectious diseases specialist and County Health Department adviser. "One group is asymptomatic and they are in the hospital for other reasons. The other group is older patients with underlying diseases and they get COVID and some pneumonia."

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A lower percentage of the hospitalized COVID-19 patients have required intensive care and breathing support than during early pandemic surges, Hamot and Saint Vincent officials have said.

"What we are seeing now is more akin to flu and RSV," Donnelly said. "Something has happened, whether through vaccinations or exposure to the virus, and we have achieved some measure of herd immunity."

Flu, RSV don't appear to be reaching last season's record numbers

In addition to the rise in COVID-19 cases, RSV cases surged around Thanksgiving and flu cases followed in mid-December. But it appears neither virus will reach the levels reported during the record-setting 2022-23 respiratory illness season.

Here is a look at the most up-to-date numbers:

  • RSV — 2022-23 season, 2,555 cases; 2023-24 season, 1,761 cases through Jan. 12

  • Flu — 2022-23 season, 4,661 cases; 2023-24 season, 2,444 cases through Jan. 12

First wastewater sampling in a month shows COVID-19 decline

Another good sign is that the amount of COVID-19 virus found in samples taken from the Erie Wastewater Treatment Plant declined to near its lowest level since mid-November.

However, these were the first wastewater results published in about a month, due to "an issue in processing the wastewater surveillance data and making it available on our website," according to Mark O'Neill, Pennsylvania Department of Health press secretary.

Wastewater samples have been processed by the Pennsylvania Bureau of Labs since August. Before then, they were processed by Biobot Analytics.

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Not having regular wastewater data available during the recent rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations has been a concern, said Lauren Carlson, an Erie County Department of Health epidemiologist.

"Wastewater sampling is a valuable resource when looking into community transmission because it gives us a real-time peak at what's happening," Carlson said. "It's also important to track other measures — such as COVID reports in the emergency departments, hospitalizations and deaths — but those can have up to a two-week lag."

Not having regularly reported wastewater data would have been a bigger problem earlier in the pandemic, Donnelly said.

"We're in a different place, with COVID moving from a pandemic illness to an endemic illness, something more akin to flu and RSV," Donnelly said. "We simply don't rely on that measure like we once did."

Contact David Bruce at dbruce@timesnews.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ETNBruce.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: COVID-19, RSV and flu: Erie County, PA sees decline in cases