The “tripledemic” — influenza, Covid-19 and the respiratory syncytial virus — is at the heart of Northwell Health’s battle against contagious disease this winter.
According to Northwell’s team of doctors, researchers and other medical professionals, Long Island is facing a challenging flu season: While the number of flu cases increases dramatically every week, the rate of hospitalizations jumped 75 percent in a single week, between Thanksgiving and Dec. 5.
The outbreak has created a surge in emergency department and urgent care visits throughout the region.
“Northwell typically runs about 2,800 to 3,000 patients in our hospital beds,” its president and CEO, John D’Angelo, said at a news conference on Dec. 18. Currently Northwell has 3,500 patients, about 10 percent of whom are suffering from the flu.
While Northwell’s surge planning helps it handle the larger volume of patients, D’Angelo warned that flu season was far from over. “We haven’t plateaued yet — we haven’t seen a bump,” he said. “We’re still on kind of that rapid-ascent part of the curve, and we have to see where it goes.”
Bruce Farber, Northwell’s chief public health and epidemiology officer, said he focuses on ways to keep people out of the hospital. Regarding this year’s flu vaccine, Farber said, “It is very good at preventing hospitalizations and deaths.”
Farber anticipates 25,000 flu deaths this year, exceeding those related to Covid, with a higher concentration of pediatric and senior deaths.
Though this year’s flu cannot stop the transmission of the disease, it can effectively reduce its severity. “I’ve not seen a death in somebody who’s been vaccinated, and I have seen plenty of deaths in people who have not been vaccinated,” Farber said. “I strongly encourage everybody to get the vaccine.”
The Northwell team’s other advice for members of the public is to use common-sense strategies in addition to vaccination to avoid spreading diseases. Dwayne Breining, senior vice president of lab services, described tests as an important way of catching and responding to cases before they escalate.
Northwell conducts 25 million tests each year in its 100,000-square-foot laboratory, making use of cutting-edge machinery and artificial intelligence partnered with medical experts. Even with this processing power, there has been a broader need for results. The Northwell team announced LabGold, a free three-in-one “tripledemic” test that can be picked up and dropped off at the system’s various patient service centers.
“You can get one of our PCR tests at any health care site,” Breining said. “We recommend the triple test for flu, RSV and Covid, because, symptom-wise, they look the same, so you may not know what you have if you feel sick. … Usually within 24 hours, you’ll have the definitive PCR result.”
As the senior vice president of pediatric services at Northwell, Annemarie Stroustrup oversees Cohen Children’s Medical Center, where sickness has spread.
“The story that you hear for adults is virtually the same for children,” Stroustrup said. “There is a lot of flu in the community.”
Northwell’s pediatric patients show a much lower rate of RSV infection, however. “I think part of that is because there are new products on the market for babies and for pregnant women to get vaccinated or prophylaxed against RSV,” Stroustrup said. “The vaccine does help keep kids out of the hospital.”
To learn more, visit nwhlabs.Northwell.edu/Covid-19-testing.
