Health

(NEW YORK) — As parents and caregivers try to cope with the spread of flu, RSV and COVID-19 in what health experts are calling a “tripledemic,” some may look online for treatment and prevention tips.

However, earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory warning people about fraudulent flu products sold online and in retail stores, saying the “unproven” products “claim to prevent, mitigate, treat, or cure the flu” – even though they have not been evaluated or approved by the FDA for safety and effectiveness.

On Instagram alone, the hashtags #rsv and #flu have been shared over 1.5 million times.

Some social media posts share information about symptoms of both viruses, while others contain information about home remedies, which doctors warn can be dangerous.

“What I worry about is that some parents may rely on these unproven treatments, and then this can actually lead to a delay in care when children need it,” said Dr. Alok Patel, a pediatrician at Stanford Children’s Health in Palo Alto, California, and an ABC News medical contributor. “For example, every cold symptom is not necessarily because of a virus that’s going to treat itself on its own.”

Patel, the father of a 2-year-old daughter, continued, “Your child may actually have something such as an ear infection, or a strep throat, and if those remain untreated, they can lead to some really bad consequences.”

Adding to parents’ confusion, according to Patel, is that as doctors’ offices and hospitals remain busy during the tripledemic, social media may seem like the fastest way to seek information. In addition, the medical advice for viral illnesses may be to let them take their course, which can lead parents to try to find home remedies.

“Parents are seeing these headlines about overfull hospitals and ERs, so parents are scared,” said Patel. “I feel the same thing,” he added.

Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez, a pediatrician at Columbia University in New York and the mother of a 14-month-old son, said she worries about how often people may take advice from people they follow on social media who are not medical professionals.

“Sometimes we follow accounts for their lifestyle advice and for decorations, or how to dress, how to dress our kids and fun activities,” said Bracho-Sanchez. “Those accounts are not the ones that we want to go to when we’re looking for health information.”

Here are tips from Bracho-Sanchez and Patel to help parents navigate the flood of health information online around flu, RSV and more:

1. Go to trusted medical sources online.

When parents and caregivers see health tips online, Bracho-Sanchez says there are three questions they should ask themselves: Does this person have the credentials to be recommending this? Could this potentially be dangerous to my child? Should I talk to my pediatrician first before doing some of these things that are being recommended?

The top step to take though, according to Bracho-Sanchez, is to only seek medical information from certified medical providers.

“When you want health information tips on keeping your kids safe, go to the pediatricians, go to verified and credited accounts of people who are actual health care professionals that are giving you advice from a place of knowledge about some of these subjects,” she said.

Patel recommends always searching for the source of a social media video or post before taking in the information.

“Any time you see a Facebook, TikTok or Instagram post that is claiming to have a treatment for a common cold or a cure, scroll to the bottom and look to see what the source of that information is,” he said. “And go backwards and be an internet sleuth, and make sure it’s legit.”

2. Know the home remedies that are pediatrician-approved.

Overall, the best way to boost your child’s immune system is simply with good hydration, nutrition and sleep, Patel noted.

There are also things parents can do to help make sure their child is as comfortable as can be when battling a viral illness like RSV or the flu, according to both Patel and Bracho-Sanchez.

Both doctors said items like humidifiers, saline nasal sprays and nasal suctioning tools are all great to have on hand at home.

For children over the age of 1, a small dose of honey, around one teaspoon, can help ease a child’s cough, according to Patel and Bracho-Sanchez.

Hydration is also very important when kids are sick.

“When my daughter is sick, we make sure that she’s still eating and drinking consistently, even if it’s small amounts at a time,” said Patel.

3. Be wary of suggested home remedies that aren’t proven.

“Some things that I personally have seen and heard of from social media platforms are home remedies such as onion water, or making immune-boosting smoothies, or even cutting up garlic cloves and placing them on children’s feet, inside their ear or on their chest to ‘draw out toxins,'” said Patel. “There is no evidence that any of this actually works.”

Patel said he warns parents to be wary of remedies that claim to be safe because they are “all natural.”

“Some treatments that may be homeopathic or natural are not necessarily safe,” he said. “They can actually interact with certain medications or have bad consequences for some children.”

Another red flag, according to Patel, is a claim that a product or treatment can cure RSV.

“There is no actual proven RSV cure,” he said. “We just have different forms of supportive care and treatment in some particular situations. There’s nothing you can buy or make that is going to magically cure your child of RSV in one day.”

4. Remember that your child is not every child.

Both Patel and Bracho-Sanchez stressed the importance of parents knowing that what may have helped one child, may not necessarily be the most effective or safest treatment for their own child.

“Your child may have asthma or a heart condition or allergies, and what works for somebody else’s child may not be enough for your child,” said Bracho-Sanchez. “You know your child best. Trust yourself and trust your doctor.”

Patel also said it’s important for parents to seek medical attention when necessary for a child so there is not a delay in the correct treatment.

“Coughing, sneezing, congestion, itchy eyes, all those symptoms may not be from the same cause as somebody else’s child,” said Patel. “What might be RSV in one kid, could be influenza in another or COVID-19 in another or a sinus infection in another child, and treatment may differ.”

Symptoms that would call for urgent medical care include changes in their mental status like confusion or sleepiness, respiratory distress like gasping for air and difficulty breathing and signs of dehydration like not making tears when they cry or making less than one wet diaper every eight hours, according to Patel.

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(NEW YORK) — Americans are taking to the roads and to the skies as they travel to see family and friends for the holidays.

While the holidays are being celebrated semi-normally for the first time in more than two years, the threat of multiple respiratory viruses lingers.

Although cases of the flu and RSV are declining in some areas, they are still higher at this point in the year than in seasons past, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, weekly COVID-19 cases have increased over the last four weeks from 307,201 to 455,466, CDC data shows.

While heading to your destination, experts recommend masking and practicing good hand hygiene to avoid getting infected — or passing infection to others — while traveling.

“The good news is that we are now all educated about how to protect ourselves against COVID and just sort of pulling out that COVID toolbox,” Dr. Sandra Nelson, an infectious diseases physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, told ABC News. “Again, we can apply the lessons that we learned on how to prevent infections for the other respiratory viruses that are circulating as well.”

Stay up to date on vaccinations and boosters

Experts said the most important thing you can do to keep yourself safe, whether traveling by car, train or plane, is to make sure you’re up to date on your vaccinations and boosters.

For COVID-19, this includes the primary vaccine series and the updated bivalent booster than specifically targets omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.

However, only 14.1% of Americans aged 5 and older have received the booster despite a recent study from the CDC that shows the booster was 80% effective at preventing seniors from being hospitalized and provided benefits for adults of all ages.

For the flu, this means getting the annual flu shot. As of Dec. 11 — the latest date for which CDC data is available — only 46.7% of Americans adults say they have received the vaccine.

According to the CDC, the flu shot reduces the risk of illness by 40% to 60%. Experts say the flu vaccine this year matches well to currently circulating strains.

“It’s important for an individual to get vaccinated, especially if they have high-risk conditions, they are immunocompromised, elderly and such that they should get vaccinated,” Dr. Abinash Virk, an infectious diseases specialist at the Mayo Clinic, told ABC News. “We know those vaccinations do decrease the [risk of] severe disease. They may not completely prevent you from having something, but at least they will prevent that severity.”

Consider wearing a mask

While traveling in an airplane or on a train, public health experts recommended Americans wear masks and only remove them while eating or drinking.

“Really, the highest risk time on an airplane is in getting on and off the plane before and after the ventilation systems on the airplane are up and running,” Nelson said. “So during boarding and disembarking the airplane, that is the highest risk time.”

She continued, “But there remain risks even when the flight is, is airborne. Even with the good ventilation systems, there’s still the potential for transmission from people who are sitting near us.”

When it comes to wearing a mask, doctors suggest wearing a well-fitting high-quality mask such as a KN95 or an N95 mask over a surgical mask or a cloth mask.

Practice good hand hygiene

Making sure you wash or sanitize your hands after touching contact surfaces such as an airplane bathroom door or tray table is one of the best ways to prevent infection, the experts said.

Even though COVID-19 is not primarily spread by coming into contact with contaminated surfaces, cold, flu and other viruses can live on surfaces from several hours to several days.

“Hand hygiene has never been more important with all these viruses that are transmitted through droplets,” Dr. Justin Fiala, pulmonary and critical care specialist at Northwestern Medicine, told ABC News. “So, someone sneezes, sneezes on their hand, wipes their nose and then turns the doorknob or handle, any of those things then can allow the virus to persist.”

“Nothing wrong with being a little bit more judicious getting that Purell or whatever the hand sanitizer is at the airport, at the Amtrak station, wherever people are this holiday season,” he added.

Open windows

If traveling by car, and if the weather isn’t too cold, the doctors recommended opening the windows for ventilation.

Ventilating the car and filtering air flow can help reduce virus particles and lower the risk of spread, according to the CDC.

“If you’re in like a warmer climate, it really is all about ventilation,” Fiala said. “And so, if you can get whatever the air is cycling through relatively frequently, then that conceivably will lower your risk.”

Stay home if you feel sick

If you develop cold or flu-like symptoms and it’s possible to delay or cancel travel plans, the experts recommended doing just that.

“This just comes down to if you’re feeling lousy enough where you’re wondering what to do, whether to go or not to a family gathering, usually I tell patients that is a good litmus test to say, ‘Oh, you know, what? You’re probably feeling bad enough, where this is not a good idea,'” Fiala said.

Additionally, people should also reconsider venturing out when sick if they’ll be visiting someone who is at high risk for severe illness such as those who are elderly or have weakened immune systems.

If you can’t get out of your travel plans, the experts suggest following the earlier recommended steps.

“If you have to travel, then I would definitely recommend that you wear a mask so that others don’t get infected, and in and preferably in an N-95 mask but if you have an additional risk of severe disease, then you really have to be a little bit more critical of that decision,” Virk said.

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(NEW YORK) — Life expectancy in the United States has fallen to the lowest levels seen in 26 years, new federal data shows.

Two new reports, published early Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, found the death rate increased 5.3%, from 835.4 per 100,000 people to 879.7 per 100,000 in 2021.

This means that life expectancy decreased in 2021 for the second year in a row to 76.4 years, down from 77 years in 2020, and is the lowest figure recorded since 1996.

While the drop of 0.6 years is not insignificant, it’s smaller than the drop of 1.8 years that occurred between 2019 and 2020.

The authors of the report said the drop was primarily due to COVID-19 and drug overdose deaths.

Men and women had roughly the same decrease in life expectancy, according to the data, with men seeing declines of 0.7 years from 74.2 years in 2020 to 73.5 in 2021. Meanwhile, women saw a decrease of 0.6 years of 79.9 years in 2020 to 79.3 in 2021.

Among racial and ethnic groups, death rates increased for nearly every group. Decreases were only seen for Hispanic and Black men, with nonsignificantly different rates for Asian men and women.

When it came to the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S., they were largely unchanged from 2020 to 2021. Heart disease continued to be the leading cause of death in the U.S. followed by cancer and COVID-19, respectively, according to the data.

The only change was chronic liver disease and cirrhosis becoming the ninth leading cause of death, while influenza and pneumonia fell off the top 10 list.

For eight of the top 10 causes, the death rate increased, but the biggest jump was seen for COVID-19.

In 2020, the rate was 85 deaths per 100,000 Americans with the rate increasing to 104.1 per 100,000 in 2021, the data showed.

The report pointed to COVID-19 as one of the main reasons for the drop in life expectancy. There were approximately 460,000 deaths caused by COVID-19 during 2021, according to an April 2022 CDC report.

Drug overdoses were the other reason for the drop in life expectancy, according to the report out Thursday.

In 2021, there were 106,699 overdose deaths for a rate of 32.4 per 100,000 people, up from 91,799 deaths or 28.3 overdose deaths per 100,000 in 2020.

The authors noted that drug overdose deaths currently account for more than one-third of all accidental deaths in the U.S.

From 2020 to 2021, the rate for men increased 14%, from 39.5 deaths per 100,000 to 45.1, and for women, the rate increased 15% from 17.1 to per 100,000 to 19.6.

The largest percentage increase was seen in Americans aged 65 and older, with a 28% jump from 2020 to 2021.

Many of those drug fatalities were due to opioids, particularly synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, the data showed, with a 22% increase from 2020 to 2021.

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(NEW YORK) — Break out the gloves and hats: bitter cold is moving in, bringing what could be the coldest Christmas in decades for parts of the U.S.

On Friday morning, the wind chill — what temperature it feels like — will drop to minus 7 degrees in Dallas and 1 degree in Houston. Up north, the wind chill will plunge to a brutal minus 39 degrees in Minneapolis and minus 37 degrees in Chicago.

On Christmas Eve, the wind chill is forecast to reach minus 10 degrees in New York, minus 1 degree in Nashville and 4 degrees in Atlanta.

Here is your cheat sheet for how to brave the frigid weather:

How to stay safe outside

Those with prolonged exposure or those not dressed appropriately for the weather are in danger of frostbite and hypothermia, National Weather Service meteorologist Jay Engle told ABC News.

Frostbite results in the loss of feeling and color in affected areas — usually the nose, ears, cheeks, fingers, toes or chin, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Frostbite could potentially cause permanent damage and, in severe cases, can lead to amputation, the CDC said.

Someone suffering from frostbite can be unaware of it because tissues that become frozen are numb, the CDC said. These are all signs of frostbite: numbness, white or grayish-yellow skin, or skin that feels unusually firm or waxy.

“Don’t rub your hands — if you have frost-nip or frostbite, rubbing actually causes tissue damage,” Dr. Randall Wexler, professor of family medicine at Ohio State University, told ABC News.

If you think you are developing frostbite, “keep the area covered if you can … because if you have frostbite on your hand and you pull off your glove, you may cause tissue damage,” Wexler said.

He added, “That’s also when you want to start trying to raise your core body temperature — get rid of wet clothes, put on clothes that are warm and dry.”

There’s also hypothermia — or abnormally low body temperature — which can impact the brain, “making the victim unable to think clearly or move well,” the CDC said. “This makes hypothermia especially dangerous because a person may not know that it’s happening and won’t be able to do anything about it.”

Warning signs for adults are shivering, exhaustion, confusion, fumbling hands, memory loss, slurred speech and drowsiness. Warning signs for infants are bright red or cold skin and very low energy, the CDC said.

Engle recommends to “dress in three or more layers. One big thick winter coat tends not to do the trick. You have to have a thick sweater underneath and then a lighter jacket on top of that and then your winter coat.”

“People really should keep their heads covered because that’s where majority of heat gets lost,” Engle added.

Wexler said moving can generate heat. But try to avoid sweating.

“If you are overheated and start to sweat, that lowers your body temperature and makes you more susceptible to cold injury,” he said. “You want to be able to adjust your layers, zip and unzip.”

Wexler also recommended staying hydrated because “dehydration can help promote cold injury.”

The young and elderly should be especially careful in the cold.

“Their ability to maintain core body temperature is harder than mid-age and younger adults,” he said. “Kids, especially babies, lose a disproportionate amount of heat from their head — that’s why you want to have a hat on their head when you’re out there. Older people are more at risk simply because it is more difficult to regulate our core body temperature as we get older.”

It’s also more difficult to maintain your core temperature if you are diabetic or taking decongestant antihistamines or certain blood pressure medications, Wexler said.

How to keep your car safe

When the temperature dips, getting behind the wheel can prove to be a challenge. Problems include dead car batteries, iced-over windshields, broken car locks and driving with no traction.

Audra Fordin, founder of Woman Auto Know and the owner of Great Bear Auto Repair in Queens, New York, provided these tips:

1. Before you hit the road, check under the hood.

“If it’s really cold outside, you want to make sure that your battery is going to be good in the freezing cold weather,” Fordin said. “If you see any snow or blue stuff that’s growing off your battery, that’s an indication you want to go to the shop to have your battery checked.”

2. Iced out windshields? Turn to your wallet for help.

“If you get to your car and can’t see, pull out a credit card, and you can just wipe that frost away,” Fordin said.

3. Fighting a stubborn car lock? Get sanitizing.

“If your lock is frozen, put the sanitizer on the key, and then put the key into the lock,” Fordin said.

4. If your car can’t gain traction, let your floor mat give an assist.

“Grab your floor mat, you’re going to put it underneath the wheel,” Fordin said. “That will give you enough traction to pull your car out and hit the road.”

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(NEW YORK) — Over the past few weeks, reports have emerged of sporadic shortages of over-the-counter children’s medications including Children’s Tylenol, Motrin and ibuprofen in some locations.

It comes amid a respiratory virus season that started earlier than usual with the highest number of flu and RSV cases seen in years.

Experts said that due to an earlier and unprecedented demand of certain medications, some stores may have little to no supply of these products.

However, manufacturers told ABC News they are working to produce the drugs and get them on shelves as quickly as possible.

Here’s what we know about the drug shortage and what you can do if you come across empty shelves:

What’s the situation?

An early start to the respiratory illness season has led to a rush in Americans buying over-the-counter pain relievers and fever reducers, with sales up 65% this November compared to last year, Consumer Healthcare Products Association spokesperson Anita Brikman told ABC News.

“Every year, we have a flu season that hits in the fall,” Dr. Stephen Schondelmeyer, professor of pharmaceutical care and health systems at the University of Minnesota, told ABC News. “This year, though, the flu season — depending on which part of the country you’re in — hit four to eight weeks early and not only did it start early, but the flu season had several different respiratory illnesses that a person could have caught all at the same time.”

“So, they may have gotten the flu, they may have gotten respiratory syncytial virus, which is RSV. COVID is still out there and there are a couple of flu-like conditions that people could get,” Schondelmeyer continued. “So, we kind of had this perfect storm of respiratory conditions hitting earlier than typically would have occurred.”

Flu has been a particular challenge this year with the U.S. seeing the highest number of cases at this point in the season at least 10 years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What’s more, children aged 4 and younger have the second-highest weekly hospitalization rate after those aged 65 and older.

Additionally, although cases of RSV are currently trending downward, they hit a two-year-high in early November, according to data from the CDC.

Meanwhile, weekly COVID-19 cases have also increased over the last four weeks from 307,201 to 455,466, and children aged 4 and younger have the highest case rate among all children under age 18, according to the CDC.

A combination of these illnesses has led to some places reporting supply shortages across the U.S., although these vary by state and even by city.

Experts said because supply is refreshed at stores at different times, customers may see stocked shelves at various times of day depending on the store.

Purchases some children medications being limited

While there are supply issues due to the unprecedented demand, manufacturers and pharmacies said there is no national shortage of pediatric cold and flu medications in the U.S.

National chains — including CVS and Walgreens — have each said they will be limiting purchases of ibuprofen and acetaminophen due to high demand.

At CVS, purchases will be limited to two per customer and online at Walgreens, purchases will be limited to six per customer, although there will be no limit in store, the chains told ABC News.

Schondelmeyer said, currently, there’s not a production issue at factories or a lack of ingredients to make the mediations, but rather because the respiratory season started so earlier, stores and manufacturers haven’t had a chance to catch up.

“It’s sort of like if you’re running a race, but you find out that everybody else started an hour before you did,” he said. “So that’s what happened here. We’re still running the race, but the flu season started before the medicines did.”

Erin Fox, senior pharmacy director at University of Utah Health, agrees and speculates companies typically make products based on last year’s sales with some room for an increase over the previous year.

“Clearly, nobody was ready for a huge spike in need for these medications,” Fox, who studies drug shortages, told ABC News. “We know manufacturers are ramping up supply, but these are low-cost meds. There isn’t a stockpile or extra manufactured to be ready ‘just in case.'”

Rite Aid told ABC News it is experiencing high demand but will not be implementing purchase limits at this time.

What you can do

Brikman told ABC News that Americans should try to avoid stockpiling, which only worsens the problem and can lead to less access and price gouging for other families.

Therefore, parents should buy only what they need, especially because the supply is expected to match demand in a few weeks.

“We’ve been in touch with all the three major manufacturers of these products — they’ve confirmed they’re running their factories, their manufacturing facilities 24/7 and trying to just meet the demand,” Brikman said. “But we also understand that there have been intermittent out of stocks. Given this demand, we understand why retailers may have put some of these limits in place to try and prevent stocking up, which could mean another family can’t find the medicine as easily.”

If someone wants to buy these children’s medications, Brikman continued, “So we’re trying to get out the message, please, when you find this, purchase what you need for your family, but avoid the temptation to stock up because that may affect the next person who walks in the store.

She added it is the hope in the next few weeks that the supply will meet the demand and pharmacies will reach their normal availability of medications.

Schondelmeyer also warned that even if parents cannot find children’s medication, they should not give them adult medication because medicine for children is dosed based on weight and age. Giving them adult doses can have serious consequences.

“Parents should be cautious and don’t give your child a full adult dose because that could be harmful to them,” he said. “Do not use aspirin. If you find that the shelves are empty at the pharmacy, ask your pharmacist what alternatives are there or consider looking at other pharmacies as well, and the pharmacist can advise you on what the appropriate dose is for a child.”

He also said parents don’t need to give their kids fever-reducing medication unless the fever is persistent. If the medication is needed, Schondelmeyer suggests parents not just stick to brand names but also look for generic options.

“There are generic versions of these medicines that are the same medicine, that are just as safe, that work just as well,” he said. “And so, don’t hesitate to ask your pharmacist, ‘Is there a generic available?'”

Experts also say a compounded version of these drugs may be an option for some people who can’t go without them. Some pharmacies, called compounding pharmacies, can take one version of a drug, like a powder, and mix it into another version, such as a liquid medication. But any compounded drug needs a prescription because it is not FDA-approved.

“It’s not common to see [ibuprofen or acetaminophen] compounded. But it’s not very difficult to do,” Gus Bassani, chief scientific officer at the Professional Compounding Centers of America told ABC News.

ABC News’ Eric Strauss, Sasha Pezenik, Youri Benadjaoud and Nicole Westman contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — As the country faces a rise in COVID, flu and RSV, there is a testing kit that the FDA authorized in May that is one swab for all three viruses.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there have been at least 15 million reported flu-like illnesses, 150,000 hospitalizations and 9,300 deaths from flu this season. Since last week, there’s been a 15% increase in total illnesses and the number of people in the hospital. Though there’s increased spread of COVID-19 concentrated in the Northeast and California, national numbers are relatively stable.

GMA medical contributor Dr. Darien Sutton joined Good Morning America to break down the tool to battle against this season’s “tripledemic.”

“The FDA is trying to improve access to PCR testing … so they’ve authorized a three-in-one test that tests for COVID, RSV and the flu with one swab,” Sutton said.

How the test works

“With the spike in RSV cases over the last year, the continued presence of COVID-19, and the ever-present threat of flu, testing for all three viruses at once enables individuals and physicians to quickly identify the illness and determine the appropriate treatment,” Dr. Brian Caveney, chief medical officer and president of Labcorp Diagnostics wrote in a press release in part of a statement.

Labcorp’s combined home collection kit, called The Pixel, is for COVID, flu and RSV only. The FDA authorized the emergency use of the kits “for the detection of nucleic acid from SARS-CoV-2, influenza A and/or influenza B, and RSV, not for any other viruses or pathogens,” according to a Labcorp press release.

Unfortunately, results don’t come in 15 minutes like a rapid antigen test, but the results are processed in a lab, using the amplification process of PCR, so the results may be more accurate. Potential test-takers go to a website and fill out a questionnaire. If they meet the criteria, they are sent the kit via overnight service. The user then swabs their nose to collect a sample and sends the kit back to Labcorp for testing. Results take one to two days after the samples have arrived back at the lab, so it takes about three to five days at the earliest to receive final results.

The kit is available for use by individuals age 2 and older, without the need for a prescription, according to the press release. The test also has no out-of-pocket cost for those with insurance and who meet the criteria in the questionnaire.

For those who are uninsured, it runs $169.

Similar tests are available from urgent care and other health care providers and you can get your results quicker. Quick results may be more useful because if you are positive for COVID-19 or the flu, treatments like Paxlovid or Tamiflu have to be taken within a few days after symptoms appear.

Should you take this test before holiday gatherings?

The Pixel three-in-one test is not for anyone looking to get rapid test results or people who may be at high risk for the three viruses and who are already experiencing flu-like symptoms.

“If you’re high risk, then you might be a candidate for interventions, for example, like Paxlovid,” Sutton said. “If you’re lower risk and you have mild to no symptoms, then I think that this is an option to take but again, if you’re going to go to an event or holiday party, my recommendation is use those rapid tests as close as possible to that event to increase the level of accuracy and if you want to add an extra layer of protection a couple of days before, you can get the PCR tests.”

Experts also say testing should not replace but can supplement other precautionary measures.

“Knowing your results early are really important depending on your risks, and if you’re lower risk and you have symptoms, wearing a mask [can help] to prevent transmission, regardless of your test results,” Sutton added.

Treatment has the best outcomes with early identification. A new study found that Paxlovid lowered the risk of COVID-19 hospitalization or death by 44% in a highly vaccinated group of U.S. adults over the age of 50. Best results are determined if started within the first three to five days after symptom onset.

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(NEW YORK) — China is reporting its first deaths linked to COVID-19 in weeks as cases surge amid the country lifting many of its so-called “zero COVID” policies.

The deaths, which were reported on Monday by the National Health Commission and occurred in Beijing, are the first recorded since Dec. 4.

No information was available about the deaths including the names, ages, sex and vaccination status of the patients.

For most of the pandemic, China has implemented strict measures, including widespread lockdowns and mass testing in an attempt to prevent outbreaks.

But over the past few months, there have been large outcries and growing public resentment over the disruption to daily life, leading Beijing to ease some restrictions such as people being allowed to isolate at home and schools without known infections being able to resume classes.

However, a public health expert told ABC News a combination of under-vaccination and large swaths of unprotected vulnerable populations will lead to more deaths.

“What will happen with the new policy right now is most of the population in China will be infected by COVID,” said Dr. Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist and chief strategy officer at the University of Washington Population Health Initiative. “In one way or another, they’ll be infected.”

According to the NHC, China has only recorded 5,237 COVID-19 deaths — much lower than the tolls reported by other Western countries — since the pandemic began, but experts agree this is likely an undercount. According to data from Johns Hopkins, China has had over 16,000 deaths since the pandemic started.

Mokdad said health officials only include those who died directly from COVID-19 in the official death count. Those with underlying medical conditions that were exacerbated by the virus or who incidentally tested positive for COVID are excluded.

However, he expects the number of deaths will rise over the next several weeks and months.

One mathematical model from the University of Washington’s Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation suggests there could be almost 323,000 total COVID-19 deaths in China by April 1 as a result of the shift in policy.

One reason deaths could rise is because of the lack of an effective vaccine.

In China, the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine has been administered since June 2021 when it received emergency use authorization. According to the World Health Organization, 87% of the population has been vaccinated, but the government says more than 90% are vaccinated according to China Daily, a state-run newspaper.

According to the WHO, the Sinovac vaccine is 100% effective against severe COVID-19. However, a Yale study found the two-dose regimen produced no neutralizing antibodies against the omicron variant.

Booster rates are also lagging with just 69.7% of those aged 60 and older as of Dec. 15 and 40% of those aged 80 and older are boosted as of early November, according to China Daily.

“Whatever China does, the simple fact they have a very susceptible population, a vaccine that’s not as effective against omicron, waning immunity and many of the elderly population not vaccinated, there will be lots of hospitalization and more deaths,” Mokdad said.

Another reason deaths could rise is because of under-vaccination and lack of exposure to the virus, due to lockdowns under the zero COVID policy, many people don’t have natural or vaccine-derived antibodies.

“They know nothing about COVID like you and I have been vaccinated or have gotten COVID-19 or both,” he said. “So, we’re not naive to cope with it and our body will remember it and then will mount a defense.”

He continued, “Many Chinese don’t have that luxury. And we are most concerned about the elderly, simply because they’re not vaccinated and the zero COVID policy protected them from infections in the past.”

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(NEW YORK) — A Virginia girl will be able to celebrate the holidays this year with a bright smile on her face thanks to a life-changing surgery that she is believed to be the first pediatric patient to undergo.

Nicole Serna-Gonzalez, 11, was born with a condition called unilateral congenital facial paralysis, which left her unable to smile, blink or show emotion on the right side of her face. The condition happens in around 2 out of 1,000 births, according to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Nicole’s parents, Sergio and Carolina Gonzalez, said doctors initially told them they believed the condition would either improve or go away completely.

When it didn’t as Nicole got older, she underwent further testing that showed part of a nerve had not developed while she was in utero, leading to her face paralysis, according to Carolina Gonzalez.

She said that when she and her husband learned Nicole’s facial paralysis would not go away on its own, they sought out treatments in hopes of making her life easier. She said they also worked to make sure Nicole knew she was beautiful the way she was born.

“I didn’t want to fix her because I think something is wrong. I love her smile before. It’s who she was,” Carolina Gonzalez told ABC News. “But I wanted for her to live a life where she doesn’t have to tell her story on a daily basis.”

Nicole’s condition is so rare that her parents said they had difficulty finding information about it online, particularly finding cases where the paralysis was successfully fixed.

In her research, Carolina Gonzalez said she discovered Dr. Patrick Byrne, who is now chair of the Head and Neck Institute at Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

The Gonzalez family traveled to meet with Byrne, where they said they discovered he could treat Nicole’s facial paralysis with a first-of-its-kind, 12-hour surgery.

Sergio Gonzalez described learning about the surgery and then deciding to move forward with it for Nicole as a “big leap of faith.”

“It was scary and we were worried but also we didn’t’ want to let pass an opportunity for her,” he said. “For us as parents, it was really important to do the most that we could and not regret it and not deny her the opportunity, but it was a big leap of faith.”

The Gonzalezes, also the parents of a 7-year-old boy, said they were made aware that the process would be long, with Nicole not seeing full results for possibly as long as two to three years.

Byrne said he watched as Nicole and her family decided to move forward with the surgery, knowing how important it is to have the ability to smile.

“When people lose their ability to express their emotions on their face, it really has profound effects,” Byrne told ABC News. “It affects not only how you feel about yourself, but it has dramatic effects of how people respond to you. It’s a really difficult way to go through life because you don’t’ get the responses from people that most of us do in everyday situations.”

On June 8, 2021, Byrne led a team of five surgeons, an anesthesiologist and multiple nurses in performing a facial reanimation operation on Nicole, which involved removing a sensory nerve from her leg and implanting it in her face.

“We identify one facial nerve, a nerve in her good side, that drives her smile and her blink, and we sacrifice it and connect the nerve graft from her leg to that nerve, and then tunnel it all the way across from one side of the face to the other,” said Byrne. “Once that’s done, then we open up the paralyzed side of her face and we have to dissect out each one of the facial nerve branches.”

In order to give Nicole the most natural-looking smile possible, Byrne and his fellow surgeons performed a first-of-its-kind trivector gracilis free tissue transfer. They removed the gracilis muscle from Nicole’s leg and divided into three slips and then implanted the muscles under and around her eyes.

“We have to implant these muscles in a way that they’ll not only work but hopefully look beautiful and look natural, once they start working,” said Byrne. “Now when Nikki smiles spontaneously, when she smiles with her mouth, she’s also smiling with her eyes, like we do naturally.”

Byrne said that as Nicole continues to get further and further away from her surgery, she’ll end up with he calls a “nicely symmetric face.”

“She’s already beautiful and she’s special,” he said. “But we’re looking forward to even more improvement as she goes through her further development.”
PHOTO: Nicole Serna-Gonzalez, 11, is pictured with her parents and brother.
Annie Neill/Cleveland Clinic
Nicole Serna-Gonzalez, 11, is pictured with her parents and brother.

More than one year after undergoing surgery, Nicole describes her own smile as “magical.”

“I feel happy with my new smile and I think it’s really magical,” she told ABC News. “The side of my face, when I smile, it moves, and I’m really happy about that. I have a full smile now.”

The fifth-grader, who said she loves history and loves to craft, said she feels “happy” that she can share her story in hopes that, “Other people who have face paralysis can get help.”

Sergio and Carolina Gonzalez said that while the months before and after the surgery were difficult, they are happy to see Nicole doing so well.

They said they also want to share their family’s story to give hope to other families who, like they once were, may be searching for ways to help their child.

“I want more parents to be able to look up and find it and normalize the whole thing, including the surgery process,” said Carolina Gonzalez. “As parents, whatever the situation is for the child, I think it’s so important to always build your child, always make them feel secure, make them feel special, because they are. That’s how we raised Nicole.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The White House’s COVID-19 coordinator on Sunday said a sharp rise in cases and hospitalizations since Thanksgiving wasn’t “totally” surprising — and he reiterated that holiday gatherings would be safer if people received their updated vaccines.

“We’ve seen increases each of the last two winters and then what else is happening? In colder, drier air the virus spreads more efficiently. … The good news here is that we can prevent those infections from turning into serious illness if people go out and get that updated bivalent vaccine,” Dr. Ashish Jha told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz of the 40%-plus jump in COVID-19 numbers.

“The updated vaccine is essential for keeping people out of the hospital. So we’re making the case that we’re at a point where it’s safe to gather, but you still have things to do,” said Jha, who for months has been telling the public that keeping current on their shots is the best way to return to normalcy while limiting illness.

The Biden administration has both acknowledged continuing strain from COVID-19 in parts of the country while saying the pandemic’s darkest period is in the past given the ready availability of treatments and vaccines.

On “This Week,” though, Raddatz noted statistics tell a slightly different story.

She cited one figure from Jha himself that less than half of nursing home residents had gotten their updated booster despite being in a high-risk group. “Why hasn’t this been happening?” she asked.

“A lot of people are confused about whether they need one or not,” Jha said. “We’re being very clear about this: If you’ve not gotten a vaccine in the last six months, it is essential to go out and get the new updated bivalent.”

Jha was also pressed by Raddatz on the low uptake of the new booster so far, as well as low mask use in many parts of the country. “How can you say that is really working?” she asked.

He said the testing, treatment and vaccine strategy needs to be implemented at many levels of society beyond the federal government — with help from governors and mayors, religious leaders and more — focusing on older people most at risk.

“If we’re going to get a country as big and diverse as ours through this difficult period, we’re all going to have to pull on this together,” he said.

But, Raddatz said, polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that many people were still unsure what the benefit would be of updating their vaccines.

While government data shows about 69% of the population completed their primary vaccine series, only 14% of people older than 5 have gotten the latest booster, which better protects against newer strains of the virus.

“From a benefit point of view, these are incredibly safe vaccines. They clearly work. They clearly reduce infections to some degree, hospitalizations and deaths to a very, very large degree,” Jha said. “The thing I remind people — people often say, ‘Well, I got my booster last year, do I really need it?’ And I say, ‘Well, I got my flu shot last year. I don’t expect that to protect me this winter. I go out and get my flu shot every winter,’ and that same way people have to go out and get their COVID shot.”

Separately, Raddatz asked Jha about anecdotal reports of shortages for children’s medicine like amoxicillin.

Jha said that while manufacturing and supply is “good,” the demand “is unprecedented” in some areas given circulating viruses — COVID-19 as well as the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

That was causing “spot outages,” Jha said, but he said he was encouraged that decreasing cases of RSV would ease the problem.

“Our job is to make sure that supply continues, in fact ramps up further, and that we get it into stores,” he said. “That, I am confident, will continue to happen.”

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(NEW YORK) — Despite fears of a potential “tripledemic,” at least one of three viruses circulating in the United States seems to be trending downward.

Cases of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, appear to have peaked in mid-November and are now declining, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Because RSV appeared much earlier than usual in the season, filling up beds — particularly in pediatric hospitals — it seemed poised to continue.

But RSV is petering out while cases of the flu continue to increase, and COVID-19 infections rise after months of holding steady.

“What we have to remember is that, at some level, even if we have an earlier season, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a longer season,” said Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “Virus will spread but, once it runs out of susceptible hosts, at some point transmission is going to die down as part of that surge.”

Brownstein says RSV cases rose rapidly due to children not being exposed to the virus over the last two years due to lockdowns and those who were born during the pandemic.

However, so many have been infected that the virus is running out of people to infect, he said.

“So, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing a sort of a downturn,” Brownstein said. “Now, whether that downturn is permanent or we’ll see another surge this winter is still, I think, yet to be seen.”

Although some of the major impact of RSV might be over with, the same can’t be said for either flu or COVID-19.

Over the last four weeks, weekly flu cases have risen from 16,081 to 35,704, according to CDC data. Meanwhile, over the same period, weekly COVID-19 infections have increased from 281,270 to 455,466, data shows.

Brownstein said neither of these is unexpected considering that cases have historically risen after Thanksgiving during the last two years of the pandemic, as people gather in crowded indoor spaces without mitigation measures.

“We absolutely recognized that Thanksgiving would be an accelerator, almost like a mass super-spreading event and that’s exactly what happened,” he said. “Now, we’re about to have a second mass super-spreading event as part of the holidays and so we’ll have to see how these virus cycles play out as a result of that.”

Brownstein also theorized another reason for the surge in flu and COVID-19 while RSV decrease is what is known as viral interference, which occurs when one virus either prevents or reduces infection from another virus.

This means that while RSV was widely circulated, it may have helped stave off infection from other viruses.

“Now, we don’t know it for sure, but there is a theory that our immune systems are already so revved up from RSV, that doesn’t allow room for other viruses,” he said. “That shift in RSV downward, potentially, is giving room for other viruses to make more headway, and here we’re seeing the rise of flu and COVID taking place now.”

However, no matter which viruses are circulating, Brownstein said the message is still the same: for people to get vaccinated and boosted against flu and COVID-19 if they haven’t already.

As of Thursday, only 14.1% of Americans aged 5 and older have received an updated bivalent booster.

“We are only nine days out from Christmas right now,” he said. “We’re at people entering the holiday season. There’s still time to get that protection and that’s the single biggest thing people can do right now.”

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