Health experts urge caution as triple threat of illnesses loom

(NewsNation) — Between reports of decade-high flu hospitalizations, hospitals around the country being overwhelmed with patients suffering from the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and COVID, which has not gone away, some health officials are declaring a “tripledemic” ahead of the 2022 holiday season.

“We are in the midst of a true tripledemic,” said Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said to Advisory Board in a Tuesday report.

Dr. Corey Hebert, a professor at the LSU School of Medicine, joined “NewsNation Live” on Wednesday to discuss how we got to a tripledemic and what it means for people ahead of the holiday season.

His advice was simple: “I don’t want people to act like this is over.”

According to the doctor’s assessment, the general public has grown fatigued over the precautionary health measures adopted during quarantine, allowing the viruses that have always been a problem to come back in higher numbers.

“You have to think about it, we all (had) antibodies for those things, but when you have masks, you don’t spread this, and so the numbers almost went to zero,” Herbert said.

Now that these viruses are back, Herbert says our antibodies have to get acclimated to viruses it hasn’t seen in a while.

“We know when you make antibodies, that means you probably got sick,” Herbert said.

Make sure to watch the rest of the interview above.