It is important to recognize that standard flu kills tens of thousands of people every year in the United States alone. “Being that this is the first flu season since we’ve been ‘fully back’ since COVID-19 first emerged, without public health countermeasures in place, there is a high likelihood that there is a resurgence of Influenza. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, public health experts have been worried about the impact when Flu and COVID-19 are co-circulating,” notes Gandhi. This is why testing is critical in tackling it. social distancing, masking, and testing-the U.S., and the rest of the world, look on track to have a tough, or at least tougher, flu season than in recent years, according to Gandhi. Since society has opened back up and disease countermeasures have relaxed-e.g. That prediction was wrong-thankfully-but of all the predictions on this year’s list, this appears to be the one most likely to come true. Last year harbored well-founded fears that the 2021-2022 flu season would usher in a “twindemic,” further straining overstretched hospital and clinical laboratory resources. ![]() As part of this dynamic, the industry should also expect to see continued growth in syndromic multiplex testing and point of care testing.” #2 – The 2022-2023 Flu Season Will Likely Be the Worst Since the Onset of the Pandemic “This capacity will impact new test adoption opportunities, consolidation of testing between platforms, and will impact send out practices. “As COVID-19 volumes moderate, labs now have much more molecular testing capacity and capability than they did prior to the pandemic,” predicts Dara Grantham Wright, executive VP & president of Bio-Rad Laboratories’ Clinical Diagnostics Group. Public health laboratories and researchers will need to monitor the evolution of the virus through strain surveillance and look for new mutations which may impact the performance of diagnostic tests and the efficacy of existing treatments and vaccines, which will inform the development of new vaccines.”ĬOVID-19 as an endemic disease will not only continue to impact society as a whole, but, more specifically, the operation of the clinical laboratory. ![]() “While many governments have loosened public health countermeasures such as social distancing and mask mandates, it will be important for the general public to be responsible, vigilant, and thoughtful of when it might be wise to wear a mask, get tested, and get the next available booster. It remains to be seen how the future variants behave from a disease perspective but it’s unlikely that the virus will be eradicated,” he predicts. “The SARS-CoV-2 virus will continue to evolve as we keep fighting to protect against variants already in circulation. ![]() Manoj Gandhi, MD, PhD, senior medical director for Thermo Fisher Scientific, outlines what endemicity will look like, at least for the near term. Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 continues to figure into many of the predictions for 2023. #1 – COVID-19 Will Transition to an Endemic Phase and Continue to Impact Laboratory Operations Following, in no particular order, are the top 10 predictions for 2023. ![]() By Chris WolskiĬLP recently asked clinical laboratory industry experts to weigh in on their predictions for the coming year. Continued staffing shortages, more industry consolidation, and the growing ubiquity of at-home testing are just a few of the predictions that clinical laboratory experts are making for 2023.
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