The US continues to see a dramatic and early surge in respiratory illnesses, which is hitting young children particularly hard and setting records for the decade.
The Southeast region is the most affected by the surge, which is driven by cases of flu, RSV (respiratory syncytial (sin-SISH-uhl) virus), and other seasonal respiratory viruses. Seven southern states—Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Virginia—have reached the highest level of respiratory-illness activity on the scale from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The states are colored a deep purple on the national map, representing the highest of sub-level of "Very High" activity.
Overall, 25 states are experiencing "High" or "Very High" levels of respiratory illness activity, while six have reached the moderate category.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 13 2022, @02:21AM (3 children)
The pandemic is old news, people are starting to recover from hanging on every dire pronouncement from government and the CDC. So, flu and cold season are here again, and the CDC needs to hype it up. Gotta get those eyeballs viewing CDC pages, gotta impress congress critters who appropriate funds.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Winter is coming.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Informative) by mhajicek on Sunday November 13 2022, @02:58AM
Here's the map:
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm [cdc.gov]
Switch from "State" to "CBSA" for more granularity.
Seems accurate to me. I work from home in a Minneapolis suburb and rarely leave the house, but I have kids in school and we've all been sick for about two thirds of the school year. At least four big whammies.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2022, @05:38AM
Gotta keep those kids outta school, how else to protect them from the critical race theory epidemic and the school mass shooters?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday November 14 2022, @09:29PM
Do you also get triggered when the national weather service warns you a big storm is coming?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TaxiCabJesus on Sunday November 13 2022, @03:46AM (3 children)
It was noticed early on that higher-than-normal amounts of oxygen deteriorate living things. Supplemental oxygen deteriorates lungs. There's an antidote for this problem, but it's mostly retired from use. James Lorrain Smith [wikipedia.org] and John Scott Haldane [wikipedia.org] did a lot of work on oxygen toxicity.
If any of you know how to convince people that their understanding of Science is not quite correct, I'd appreciate your insights.
(Score: 5, Funny) by driverless on Sunday November 13 2022, @05:24AM (2 children)
Don't forget Albert DeSalvo's [wikipedia.org] pioneering work in protecting people from that toxic oxygen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2022, @05:47AM (1 child)
Some did try an oxygen replacement therapy, using Zyklon B. Worked quite well in preventing the body cells from using the toxic oxygen.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday November 14 2022, @03:33PM
Oxygen is not only toxic but is also promotes corrosion in living things.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 13 2022, @04:23AM
It's probably not common between where I live (Great Lakes region) and the deep south (purple on the map)... Around here we'd start wearing masks to protect others from any airborne contagious disease we may have contracted.
Health (and common sense) over epidemics any day, that's what I say. There's been something (cough, cough) going around in my house. We all wear masks when shopping and other indoors activities.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Sunday November 13 2022, @08:20AM (1 child)
It seems to be stretching coincidence that we'd have a nasty year for common respiratory diseases right as we get COVID... managed. I wonder if there might be a link?
Some possibilities as to why it's so bad this year:
- the lingering respiratory damage done by even symptomless COVID is making people more vulnerable to other respiratory infections
- COVID and/or the vaccine has some other secondary immunological effect that makes you more vulnerable to other diseases. That's not common, but it does happen. E.g. measles erases your immune system memory, making you more vulnerable to everything. And I seem to remember some African "cold" that flared up a few years pre-Covid where variant A and B are both relatively harmless, unless you've already been infected by the other, in which case it might kill you (I think it was one of those situations where your immune system went into an unnecessary and potentially fatal overdrive).
- Unlike COVID, the flu and common colds see significant transmission by contact as well - and messing with your mask can potentially increase the spread of contact transmission diseases. (Hence all the warnings about not touching your mask early on, before we realized that COVID really only spread by air.
- And finally, for completeness sake, it could be that it's not *actually* significantly worse, it's just getting reported a lot more because of all the people that normally ignore it or just take non-prescription cold medicine have gotten used to talking about their health, and actually getting tested to make sure their cold isn't COVID - which puts the information into reporting infrastructure that's running much more smoothly after a couple years of stress testing.
Thoughts?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Sunday November 13 2022, @12:30PM
Also the overuse of disinfectants, masks, distancing, etc lead to a lot of people skipping several evolutions of viruses leading to a lack of immunity to common bugs, and a more severe reaction when reintroduced.
But, yeah, I think it's mainly the reporting aspect. Nobody would report anything before the financial incentive was introduced. Now they report anything that could be used to gain, well, anything. Mostly clout chasing at this point I think. People at the center of attention want to remain there.