SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- The pandemic may be all but over, but some San Diego doctors said that isn’t stopping COVID-19 and other viruses from impacting our communities this holiday season.
The medical professionals also said San Diegans should take steps to protect themselves this winter.
When asked if the county will see a rise in COVID, flu, and RSV cases, Sharp Community Care Group primary care physician Dr. Kaveh Bahmanpour told ABC 10News he is certain there will be an increase.
“Yes, it's going to be more COVID cases. Yes, it's going to be more flu cases. I'm not sure if it's going to be as severe in the prior years. The covid strain that we have right now, its highly contagious but, it’s not causing that severe infection.”
Bahmanpour says there could be more cases in our community than what will be reported. The doctor says this because a lot of people are not getting tested compared to what we saw during the height of the pandemic.
According to the county’s Health and Human Services Department, from the beginning of July to Nov. 18, more than 23,000 COVID cases were reported; there were 198 reported outbreaks and more than 100 people died of complications from the virus.
During that same time, there were 1,900 cases of the flu and more than 1,200 RSV cases.
ABC 10News took a look at the reported number of COVID cases from previous years. In 2022, there were more than 117,000 cases. In 2021, the county recorded more than 350,000 cases.
Bahmanpour said this was a tough time for many who worked in the medical field.
“It broke my heart that there was not much that I could do, especially at the beginning. We didn’t have the vaccine; we didn’t know much about the virus,” he told ABC 10News. “The virus is not as bad as it was at the beginning. We are better now because anxiety was really high for me.”
