The front page of this weekend’s New York Times warns of a COVID “Tripledemic” because of an increase in the flu this December.

This looks like more scaremongering by the media as they try all they can to prevent a long-overdue post-COVID return to normalcy.

As we’ve shown on these pages, the early arrival of RSV and Influenza did not portend unusual severity — despite the media panic.

Now the CDC confirms we got it right:

“Not that there is an average flu season, but it’s within the bounds of what we saw during flu seasons prior to the pandemic,” Lynnette Brammer, team lead for domestic surveillance in the CDC’s influenza division said. “It doesn’t look particularly severe.”

About a month ago we noted influenza was tracking about six weeks earlier than recent pre-pandemic seasons but otherwise looked normal. That has continued:

What about RSV? That peaked in early November and has plunged since: