Overview
CDC expects the upcoming U.S. fall and winter respiratory disease season will likely have a similar combined number of peak hospitalizations due to COVID-19, influenza, and RSV compared to last season. CDC’s outlook is based on historical trends, expert opinion, and scenario modeling results.
This outlook serves as a baseline for what could occur during the 2025-2026 season. It is intended to provide decision-makers with information to assist in public health preparedness for respiratory virus illnesses during the 2025-2026 fall and winter respiratory season (defined as October through mid-May). This includes when hospitals might experience the most demand due to COVID-19, influenza, and RSV. We will update this outlook every two months or as warranted during the respiratory season.
To develop this outlook, we consulted a range of CDC and external experts on COVID-19, influenza, RSV, and infectious disease dynamics to assess what may occur during the 2025-2026 season. Our assessments are based on expert elicitation; historical data for COVID-19, influenza, and RSV; and COVID-19 scenario modeling conducted by the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics (CFA). Similar methods used in the past two respiratory seasons produced outlooks that provided useful ranges and captured the final combined peak hospitalization. As with all long-range outlooks, there is inherent uncertainty, which we describe below. This is a high-level assessment intended to provide information on how the 2025-2026 respiratory season could unfold, and it is not a precise forecast.
We use COVID-19, RSV, and influenza-associated peak hospitalization rates to understand trends in disease-specific and combined burden throughout the respiratory season. While peak hospitalization rate is a key factor for this outlook and contributes substantially to hospital burden, cumulative disease burden will also impact hospital demand throughout the season. It is possible that there will be multiple peaks in the combined hospitalization burden this season.