EXCERPT:
HOTEZ: “It’s a good news/bad news story, Richard. So, the flu activity is starting to come down. Over the last four weeks, it has come down pretty steadily. Now, it could bounce back up as we head into 2023, but I’m hoping not. It’s still — you should still get your influenza vaccine, if you haven’t gotten it, the level of flu activity is still pretty high but it is coming down. The not-so-good news is that there is a commensurate rise in the Covid-19 cases and it’s not just the rise in cases but also hospitalizations are going up, as you point out, and we have some new variants in place. So, I call them the Scrabble variants because they use high-value Scrabble letters like X, B, and Q. So there’s BQ.1, BQ.1.1. And what we’re seeing in New York is somewhat unique. We’re seeing this variant called XBB, which is now about half of the isolates in New York according to the Centers for Disease Control. And the reason I bring that up is because this new bivalent booster that’s available seems to have some cross-protection against XBB. So, if you’ve not gotten your bivalent booster, this is my most important message over this holiday week, is get that booster. It’s — now is the time to get it if you haven’t gotten it yet.”