A predictable winter illness season has caused alarm – but are we missing the real threat?. Copy link. twitter. facebook. whatsapp. email. The evidence has been piling up all around us for months. Lurid headlines warning of a “quad-demic” and a mysterious virus spreading in China; relatives sickened for weeks with flu and hospitals stretched to breaking point.
Little more than a year-and-a-half after the Covid-19 pandemic was finally declared over, the world is once again under attack from respiratory viruses. This time, though, the waves of infections are not the result of a new pandemic pathogen. Instead, the apparent onslaught is the result of a seasonal spike in respiratory disease.
Every year, a host of illnesses including colds and flu surge as the air becomes cooler and drier and people spend more time indoors, making it easier for viruses to spread. The effects can be severe – hospitals across the world come under intense pressure from millions of people requiring treatment for respiratory conditions. Hundreds of thousands of people will be killed by influenza alone.
This winter is no exception. But is this annual respiratory virus season really as bad as it seems?. What – if anything – has changed this time? And, with so many viruses going around and an outbreak in China causing an almost farcical global panic, could the real threat be slipping under the radar?.
