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US may face ‘tripledemic’ amid exodus of health care workers

Medical workers treat patients in the COVID-19 ward at the US Department of Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare system campus and medical center in West Roxbury, Massachusetts on Jan 11, 2022. (JOSEPH PREZIOSO / AFP)

NEW YORK / MOSCOW – The United States could very well face what some doctors have dubbed a "tripledemic" this winter, with cases of COVID-19, the flu and a virus called respiratory syncytial virus surging at the same time, CBS News reported Tuesday.

Some 330,000 medical professionals dropped out of the labor force in 2021, the report said, citing health care commercial intelligence company Definitive Healthcare

"The simultaneous increase in cases of three distinct viruses comes as more professionals are leaving the health care field for work that either pays better or is less physically and emotionally draining, which could further threaten the nation's strained health care system," said the report.

ALSO READ: WHO: COVID-19 still international health emergency

"I'm concerned that hospitals, health care providers are going to be overwhelmed," CBS News medical contributor and Kaiser Health News editor-at-large Celine Gounder was quoted as saying. "We're looking at very high rates of both flu and RSV, so probably something around like 35,000 hospitalizations per week just from those two conditions."
Some 330,000 medical professionals dropped out of the labor force in 2021, the report said, citing health care commercial intelligence company Definitive Healthcare.
Russia

Russia registered 7,518 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 21,394,360, the official monitoring and response center said Wednesday.

READ MORE: Virus: HK logs over 4K new cases for second consecutive day

The center said the nationwide death toll increased by 80 to 389,790, while the number of recoveries grew by 11,517 to 20,751,864.