Cases of COVID-19 are declining headed into the respiratory virus season, while cases of RSV and flu are expected to return to pre-pandemic levels. That forecast from State Epidemiologist Dr. Cherie Drenzek came Tuesday during a meeting of the Georgia Board of Public Health.
While those trends represent good news, Drenzek said they shouldn’t give Georgians a false sense of security. The threat posed by COVID, RSV, and flu together is greater than the sum of their parts.
Still, Drenzek said deaths and hospitalizations from COVID are as low as they’ve been since the pandemic began in early 2020, due both to the availability of vaccines and the widespread immunity Georgians have acquired during the pandemic years.
Also good news that no surges in COVID cases have been reported. Positive tests for RSV spiked at 21% a few weeks ago in Georgia but have dropped since to only 10%.