‘Stay Home’ if Sick This Christmas, CDC Chief Warns, As New COVID Variant Sweeps the US

Just days before Christmas, many are already gathering to celebrate the holidays together. As a “tripledemic” of respiratory viruses continues to spread, Mandy Cohen, M.D., M.P.H.,  director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has a message that many likely won’t want to hear: stay home if you think you might be sick.

“I know it’s hard, but if you’re feeling sick, please stay home and avoid spreading germs to others, especially your loved ones who are at higher risk of getting very sick,” Cohen said in a video posted to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“We continue to see a lot of respiratory illness right now. Flu, COVID and RSV are spreading in most of the country,” she continued.

The trio of viruses are rampant in the United States right now. The last couple weeks of November and first two weeks of December brought on a wave of cases. During that time, COVID hospitalizations swelled by more than 50%, while flu hospitalizations climbed by a whopping 200% and RSV hospitalizations by 60%. 

According to the most recent data from the CDC, nearly 25,000 people in the U.S. are currently hospitalized with COVID.

Experts have recently expressed concern over the potential for an influx of patients seeking treatment for respiratory illness due to an uptick in holiday gatherings in December. Maria Van Kerkhove, M.D., who leads the WHO’s COVID response, cautioned in a video posted to X earlier this week, that respiratory viruses will “take advantage” of the holiday season when people more frequently gather indoors.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the most recent COVID variant to emerge — JN.1 — is believed to be more transmissible.

JN.1’s growing presence on the CDC’s variant tracker is in line with that assumption. The CDC estimates that JN.1 accounted for nearly half — 44% — of the COVID cases reported during the most recent week on record.

Cohen is encouraging people who are showing signs of respiratory illness to get tested to confirm what is causing symptoms and to prevent spreading germs to their loved ones during the holidays.

“We have treatments for flu, COVID and pneumonia, but you have to know what you have in order to get the right treatment.”