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Social distancing has almost extinguished the spread of the flu and other respiratory viruses. But that does mean future outbreaks could be serious – and can come at strange or unexpected times, experts warn.
In the short term, fewer cases of influenza means fewer influenza deaths and hospitalizations, reducing the burden on healthcare systems already slammed with COVID-19, Atlantic reported. Cases of other seasonal viruses, including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), common cold coronavirus and parainfluenza viruses, which cause upper and lower respiratory tract infections, have also dropped to remarkably low levels this year, likely due to coronavirus-related precautions, such as masking, physical distancing, hand washing and limited international travel.
But experts predict that this respite from seasonal viruses could make us vulnerable, as fewer people will be exposed and gain immunity against circulating strains.
Related: 20 of the worst epidemics and pandemics in history
“Sensitivity is increasing in the population,” said Shweta Bansal, disease ecologist at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, said at the atlantic.
For example, children who have not been previously exposed to viruses will be born, as usual, but fewer of them will encounter the viruses than in an average year; in the meantime, the immunity in previously exposed adults will begin to decrease. People without immunity or with reduced immunity “are like fuel for the flu fire,” Bansal said. “The more fuel there is available, the easier it can be for an epidemic to occur.”
Match could be struck as COVID-19 precautions increase, causing infections to rebound, Rachel Baker, epidemiologist at Princeton University, said Science News. As the size of the susceptible population increases, “we need to be prepared for out-of-season outbreaks and potentially large outbreaks,” Baker said.
For example, New South Wales in Australia typically experiences a peak in RSV cases between April and June, but during the 2020 season the number of positive RSV tests has declined by more than 85% compared to recent years. , Science News reported. But at the end of December, after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in New South Wales, RSV cases increased; Typically only a few hundred cases are reported at the end of December, but in 2020, 6,000 positive RSV tests were detected in just two weeks.
This Australian case “could be an interesting foreshadowing of what’s to come in the northern hemisphere,” Baker told Science News.
Scientists are still unsure whether the next flu seasons will be bad, The Atlantic reported. But the lack of influenza strains in circulation makes it more difficult to prepare for the season. Scientists would normally monitor different strains of influenza mutate over time, to predict which versions of the virus might be prevalent in the coming season. This early sampling helps them formulate a new flu vaccines in advance.
But with so few influenza cases to sample this year, scientists are running out of data. The low level of circulation could theoretically suffocate some strains of the flu, Florian Krammer, virologist and flu expert at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told The Atlantic. But on the other hand, whole new strains could emerge without scientists knowing about them, he said.
You can read more about future flu seasons at Scientific news and Atlantic.
Originally posted on Live Science
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