It's not just COVID anymore, or a triple-demic. Welcome to the 'new norm' of seasonal illnesses

If so, it seems like another argument in favour of letting most people work from home.

Can confirm. Have been working from home since 2019, haven't gotten sick once. Y'all can keep your germs.
But it'll never happen because it's bad for rich people.
- Well it's bad for the rich people who own real estate (who seem to be behind the push against it), but most businesses can adapt (some sooner, some later) and probably see benefits. Big changes don't just happen overnight, though. Pressure has to be kept up for a while.
All that does is establish an arbitrary new balance between the effectiveness of people's immune systems and the infectious diseases that continue to work through society. Any time you go from less societal interaction to more interaction there will be a boost in infections before it settles down to normal, but I'm not sure that the answer is to continually reduce societal interaction simply to reduce the spread of mild illnesses.

This really seems to be more of a healthcare supply issue than a spead of disease issue.

It can be both.

I've got a kid in daycare so we've been sick since August non stop. Covid was in the mix about a month ago, but it was just one among many illnesses

This year I got very sick three times. Once in April/May where I got a severe respiratory infection, again in October where I got a very bad cold and November I got COVID.

My lungs are fucking scrap. I can't stop coughing with mucus all the time. I have low energy. It's very difficult.

And forget about seeing a doctor. You can't see anyone in clinics anymore, ERs are full and hospitals are at 200% capacity.

I started using symbicort for post infection inflammation and irritation. I haven't had a cough longer than a day for years now. Existing over the counter cough medicine should be outlawed for lack of efficacy.

Still get sick though 😮‍💨
- I'll have to ask my doctor is symbocort is right for me.
  
  (God that sounds like a medicine commercial.)
I've attri uted it to just... aging? But this year I've been sick 4 or 5 times since August. I don't have kids, I live alone in a big city, but I work from home.
- I think the isolation doesn't help with the immune system. We're less exposed to various diseases.

I'm not surprised hospitals are still loaded. Covid's preventable "temporary" (2yr?3?) hit to hospitals incited people to retire in a permanent fashion. Now any issues with loading and staffing are complicated by recruitment from a really small pool. And family doctors? No one wants to be a family doctor.

While the plural of 'anecdote' isn't 'data', I can confirm that wait times for injuries are stilll somewhat short. It's proper triage in action. Procedures are scheduled fast and the cancellation call list is still your friend. If you're coughing and it sounds like one of the big-three illnesses that are going to be a check-and-release kinda deal, you're going to be there for-ev-er. I'd like to see a second queue to cherry-pick the fevers and colds and get their assessment out of the way, but working that will be a challenge.

It's gonna be a rough winter, and I'm gonna have my face-diaper when I'm in groups or on transit. I don't need that hassle.

But if you miss your doctor, thank your closest anti-vax horse-paste hillbilly; and Fox news for weaponizing them into belligerent know-it-all obstructionists. I haven't heard a retirement story that doesn't include a "belligerent advocate" trigger.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

And as health-care teams remain dangerously overstretched, they're also grappling with the pressure of what some physicians are calling a "new norm" for seasonal illnesses — a range of viral and bacterial infections all back in circulation, with COVID-19 still chief among them.

Two pediatric facilities in Montreal held a joint news conference on Wednesday to hammer home the challenges ahead, while urging families to rely on community-based clinics rather than overflowing emergency departments whenever possible.

It's a Canada-wide problem: Data shows millions of Canadians don't have a regular health-care provider, while a new report from Ontario's acting auditor general suggests in that province, one in five patients who visited emergency departments were only there because they lack a family doctor.

"On top of an already elevated baseline, now we're seeing all of the usual fall respiratory illnesses coming in, plus COVID, which never existed four years ago," Dr. Lisa Salamon, an emergency physician in Toronto, told CBC News.

Parts of the U.S., China, Denmark, and several other European countries are all reporting higher levels of pneumonia infections, while South Korean health officials announced hospitalizations for the illness have doubled in the last month, mostly among children.

"Immunity to mycoplasma may have fallen, because many people may not have been exposed to it during times of social distancing," explained Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

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