'Tridemic' Uptick: S.Ga. faces COVID, flu, RSV

Jan. 9—VALDOSTA — The "tridemic" is ringing in the new year.

With the winter — and by extension, cold and flu season — in full swing, South Georgia Medical Center is reporting an increase in COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus cases in Lowndes County.

According to the Associated Press back in October, the phenomenon is referred to as a "tridemic": a state where all three ailments combine to stress hospitals and medical centers.

In an interview with The Valdosta Daily Times last week, Dr. Brian Dawson, chief medical officer of SGMC, said medical staff began seeing higher rates of the flu and RSV at the hospital and outpatient clinics in Lowndes, Berrien and Lanier counties last October.

COVID-19 cases didn't see a notable rise until early December, when flu and RSV cases began to level. Currently, SGMC is seeing an uptick in all three.

"We've been right around that 30. High 20s to 30 for the past few days. I think actually yesterday (Thursday), we had 31, so we've been seeing them here on the main campus. We're definitely seeing more COVID and flu, although we're still having some cases come to the emergency department, it's less prevalent there.

"And with the RSV, it seems like it's far more prevalent in children. I would say age 5 and below but I talked to one of our pediatricians in town, Dr. (Brian) Griner, and he was saying that he's seeing it more concentrated in those that are aged 3 and below," Dawson said.

SGMC had been on "high alert" due to the recent spike and has returned to daily COVID reporting after halting the practice last October. This comes as the latest COVID variant of concern, XBB.1.5, continues to rise but still makes up a minority of new COVID-19 infections across the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Dawson said it is not a variant SGMC has seen yet.

"So whenever it comes to specific codes, variants, the CDC and the state health department have a process that they go through sampling of laboratory samples and they send that off for more specific genetic sequencing to determine where that is ... We base that on whether it's COVID or not COVID," he said.

"For the purposes of epidemiological studies, that's something that the CDC and the state health departments they work together in conjunction to get a sampling to determine specifically what kind of variants are out at this time," adding the hospital has not seen variants yet that it hasn't treated in the past.

Dawson said the level of cases have been manageable for the hospital and the recent opening of the Smith Northview emergency room has increased the capacity to handle emergency cases by 25-30%.

Since the tridemic's start, the state health department reported that Lowndes County has had 365 more confirmed COVID cases, four more confirmed deaths and 29 more hospitalizations since the pandemic's start, bringing the totals to 17,950 cases, 308 deaths and 755 hospitalizations.

Statewide, Georgia has seen more than 2,306,382 confirmed cases, with more than 34,374 confirmed COVID-19 deaths.

Last year, Georgia had been noted as one of several states reporting unusually high numbers of confirmed flu cases for the early flu season. From Oct. 8 to Dec. 24, the latest record, the Georgia Department of Public Health website reported the state has seen 1,750 influenza hospitalizations, 298 influenza outbreaks and 35 flu-related deaths throughout the state.

A pronounced upswing compared to the Oct. 9 to Dec. 25, 2021 data.

It reported only 49 influenza hospitalizations then, five influenza outbreaks and six flu-related deaths.

The CDC displays the average number of RSV tests that were performed, and the average percent of those that were positive from three adjacent weeks: the specified week, and the weeks preceding and following it. This is also known as a centered three-week moving average.

The CDC noted the percentage of positive antigen RSV tests by a three-week moving average in Georgia during the week of Dec. 31 was 2.080% or 67.236 out of 2099.5 total antigen detection tests.

The percentage of RSV polymerase chain reaction tests by three-week moving average for that same week was 2.396 or 11.40496 out of 1450.5.

As far as preventative measures, Dawson's advice echoed Griner's at the tridemic's start: hand-washing, mask-wearing and vaccines.

"Despite some of the controversies, there is scientific evidence that the vaccinations do provide a level of protection over more than just innate immunity in and of itself. Secondly, I think basic precautions of maintaining your distance covering your cough and making sure that you wash your hands frequently. Those who are at increased risk of complications from infection may want to be more cautious about using masks and the appropriate settings. First of all, I would recommend that they go to the CDC website and refer to the expert recommendations there," he said.

"Most of that is based on the local rates of transmission and they can break that out by county. You can look up COVID transmission rates by county, and it is on the CDC website. It tells you whether you're low, medium or high transmission rates, and they give specific guidance as to what people would need to do to help decrease their likelihood of passing that on. and most importantly, I would say more than anything, is that people communicate with their primary care physician because their primary care physicians know more about the individual's risk factors and things that will put them at a higher risk for having a particularly devastating case of COVID-19 or influenza or anything else for that matter.

"And I keep talking about getting vaccinated for COVID but people need to get vaccinated."