With respiratory infections increasing, lots of people are getting sick, according to health officials. Health experts say the holiday season is prime for contagious illnesses to spread in crowded locations like malls, airports and holiday parties.

Cases of influenza have closed in on 2 million cases nationwide already, and more than 700 deaths.

South Jersey native, Jayme Bundy, is back to wrapping holiday gifts after recovering from a bout with COVID.

“It was almost like I was having an out-of-body experience. Like I didn’t feel myself at all,” Bundy said.

Bundy got sick with a fever and congestion right after Thanksgiving when she was around hundreds of people while working at the Cherry Hill Mall.

Maps from the CDC show a growing number of people are getting the flu, COVID and RSV in Pennsylvania, Delaware and especially in New Jersey.

“Everybody’s sick right now. Five of my coworkers are sick. Head colds, congestion, can’t talk, just feel terrible,” Bundy said.

New Jersey had a big spike in flu cases.

According to the health department, November recorded more than 2,000 cases — 542 cases were reported the same time last year, and in 2023, 1,086 cases.

“We are seeing patients with flu being hospitalized at this point, and we do have concerns about that,” Dr. Martin Topiel, with Virtua Health, said.

Topiel said it’s the season for contagious infections.

“We’ve had recent Thanksgiving holidays, holiday parties, change in the temperature outside. And so there’s been a lot of interaction,” Topiel said.

Topiel says the spike in flu cases could also be because fewer people are getting vaccinated — and this year’s influenza vaccine isn’t as protective as years past, but it’s still recommended.

“The vaccine should still be effective, reducing hospitalization incidents, reducing the seriousness of the infection,” Topiel said.

Now that she’s recovered, Bundy’s house is ready for more holiday festivities. She’s hoping to avoid more illnesses. Topiel got a flu shot and says she should have included the COVID vaccine.

Doctors say it’s not too late to get the flu or COVID vaccine. People in high risk groups are being advised to take precautions when in crowded indoor locations.

President Donald Trump is standing by his tariffs, at least in theory.

Under the banner “Lower Prices, Bigger Paychecks,” Trump kicked off the first of a series of speeches to promote his economic message in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, as polls indicate the country is increasingly concerned about the rising cost of living.

“They always have a hoax,” Trump told the crowd, referring to criticism from Democrats that his policies drove up prices. “The new word is ‘affordability.’”

“Democrats are like, ‘prices are too high.’ Yeah, they’re too high because they cause them to be too high,” Trump added. “But now they’re coming down.”

Later, he said, “I can’t say affordability is a hoax because I agree the prices were too high. So I can’t go to call it a hoax because they’ll misconstrue that.”

Trump, during the 90-minute speech, also reiterated that his favorite word is “tariff” and credited his policies for bringing in “hundreds of billions of dollars,” presumably for the government in tariff revenue.

“You can give up certain products,” Trump said at one point. “You could give up pencils. Because under the China policy, you know, every child can get 37 pencils. They only need one or two, you know. They don’t need that many.”

Despite standing by his tariff policies, Trump has, in reality, rolled back many of his earlier tariffs, especially ones enacted on April 2.

Tariffs are still higher than they have been in many decades, but the original 25% tariff on every import from Mexico and Canada was walked back to exclude all items covered in the USMCA trade agreement, which includes most imports from the two neighbors. Tariffs on imports from China, once more than 100%, have been reduced to a baseline tariff of 10%, which applies to all other countries.

On top of that, in an attempt to address the price of groceries, Trump also modified and removed tariffs on a range of food products in November, such as beef, coffee, bananas, and tomatoes.

Of the remaining tariffs, evidence points to an impact on the price of consumer goods.

“Our analysis suggests that tariff measures are already exerting measurable upward pressure on consumer prices,” according to a report published in October by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis that looked at data from January to August of this year. “The rise in prices beginning in early 2025 coincides closely with tariff developments, and our model-based regressions confirm that these effects are statistically and economically significant.”

“At the same time, the pass-through remains partial; only a portion of the model-predicted effect has materialized so far,” the report added. “This could reflect delays in price adjustments, competitive pressure limiting firms’ ability to raise prices, or expectations that the tariffs may prove temporary.”

Trump’s speech comes as consumer sentiment remains low. According to the University of Michigan’s survey of consumers, sentiment dropped to 51 points in November, which is the second-lowest score the index has ever recorded since 1952, narrowly topped by a score of 50 in June 2022.

Earlier on Monday, in an interview with Politico, Trump said that he would give his economy a grade of “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.”

Some Democrats have centered their pre-2026 midterm messaging on affordability, and several have explicitly blamed rising costs on Trump’s tariff and trade policies. Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor-elect, with whom Trump had a meeting, also won while running primarily on making the city more affordable.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.