![]() ![]() Ashish Jha, the former White House Covid-19 response coordinator.īesides reviewing information China releases, the U.S. “I always think the key is, to quote President Reagan, ‘trust but verify,’” said Dr. “They just say ‘clinics are overrun.’ But what does that mean? Is it 3 percent of people infected? Is it 10 percent?” Can we trust the data from China? “Nobody’s reporting out rates of disease,” he said. That makes him wonder about the actual number of sick children in China compared with the capacity of the country’s health system. “In our own state of Minnesota, we’ve downsized substantially, closed a lot of pediatric units in general hospitals, have not expanded extensively in children’s hospitals,” he said. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said he’s seen cuts in health care capacity overall, and even harsher downsizing of pediatric units. Peter Hotez, the co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.ĭr. run at capacity even in good times to survive economically, said Dr. Increase hospitals’ surge capacity, especially for children, experts said. “We’re getting back to the normal ebb and flow of respiratory viruses with Covid in the mix now, too.” What should the U.S. “We’re in the midst of RSV season now, and it’s not like last year, because all those kids paid their debt, so now it’s sort of more ordinary,” said Adalja. ![]() this year is also low because the country paid its “debt” for illnesses like RSV last year, Adalja said.īabies born during the pandemic had limited exposure to RSV because of pandemic precautions, but once those measures ended and people started to get together as they had before Covid arrived, the number of RSV cases spiked in the U.S. The likelihood of the outbreak spreading to the U.S. “Sometimes the surge of infections can really put a stress on your health care system, and so monitoring for if this moves out of the younger pediatric age groups into other age groups and how many cases are increasing on a weekly basis is really the critical thing right now,” he said. Within China, the outbreak could be the beginning of a surge of respiratory infections, because children are “often the conduits of disease” to their families, said Pekosz. “I don’t think that has any implications outside of people that are physically in China,” said Adalja. The biggest implication will likely be stress on China’s hospital systems. “This is just what you expect - when you give these respiratory pathogens a break, the number of susceptible individuals in your country goes up, and then you can get an outsized outbreak.” How high is the risk of global spread?īecause there’s no new pathogen to date, the risk of the outbreak spreading to people living outside of China is low, experts said. “This already happened last year,” said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar and adjunct assistant professor at Johns Hopkins. “A large portion of the population probably is lacking immunity and haven’t gotten infected with a number of other pathogens, and what we’re seeing now is a burst of all these people in one year are getting infected,” said Andrew Pekosz, an immunology professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.īecause testing so far isn’t showing a novel virus at play, the outbreak in China shouldn’t pose concern to health officials in the U.S., experts said. The CDC has endorsed the view that avoiding infectious diseases for a prolonged period makes a population more susceptible when lockdowns, masking, social distancing and other precautions cease. The term “immunity debt” gained traction to describe it, and China might now be paying back its debt on a delayed schedule - the result of maintaining Covid lockdowns longer than other countries. ![]() saw a similar outbreak last year after ending formal pandemic precautions: Flu, Covid and RSV peaked at the same time, a confluence dubbed the “tripledemic.” POLITICO asked health care experts what to make of it. Still, last week’s demand by the World Health Organization for information from China on “reported clusters of pneumonia in children in Northern China” reminded the world of the start of the pandemic nearly four years ago, and triggered anxiety that a new pathogen may again cause a global outbreak.Ĭhina’s health ministry said Sunday that flu and other known viruses and bacteria are causing the surge, not a novel virus. Many children have never previously encountered the viruses or bacteria that can cause illness, and are particularly susceptible. ![]()
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