As winter worsens in the northern hemisphere, many countries are reporting increases in cases of influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), COVID-19 and even diseases caused by group A streptococci.
It's true that respiratory infection rates typically increase in the winter months, but some health specialists speculate that mask-wearing and social distancing policies during the pandemic didn't allow people to build immunity to germs like they did before.
Thus, flu rates were low during the pandemic and perhaps now humanity is paying the price for having taken off the masks.
“Epidemiology is too complex to blame one phenomenon. In general, we know that after pandemics, public behavior changes. If in 2021 people were less exposed to the flu because of masks and social distancing, they are potentially less immune now and the season may be more difficult as people become exposed,” said Dr. Hagai Levine, president of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians and professor of epidemiology at the Faculty of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun.
For Levine, there are also additional factors at play.
An example is that this winter many people will not self-isolate if they feel sick but test negative for COVID-19, thereby spreading their illness to others.
The climatic factor
Another variable, said the expert, is the climate.
Not only do flu viruses infect more easily when the air is cold enough, but the cool weather also leads to social contact indoors, where germs spread more widely.
In that sense, climate change is also likely to have an effect.
In 2021, Levine together with local, Palestinian and German colleagues published a paper on the relationship between cyclonic weather patterns and seasonal influenza in the Eastern Mediterranean region between 2004 and 2017.
“There is clear evidence that climate change over the last 50 years has affected human health, in part by altering the epidemiology of climate-sensitive diseases,” indicated the authors, who recommended developing climatology tools to estimate how a world “ “hotter” affects the transmission environment for a variety of communicable diseases.
“The word 'influenza' comes from 'influence' because it was previously suspected that the weather or the stars influenced the disease,” Levine explained.
As a bottom line, rising infection rates may be due to an “epidemiological triangle” of changes in human behavior, climatic conditions, and the pathogens themselves.
Viruses are always evolving and sometimes they are simply more virulent.
Is it possible to reduce the risk of winter respiratory infections?
According to Levine, the first step is for governments to invest more in epidemiological caution to produce concrete data that supports actions such as the promotion of vaccines and universal precautions.
“We need to put our emphasis on the facts,” Levine said after echoing recommendations from the World Health Organization's (WHO) most recent influenza update to improve surveillance of influenza viruses and SARS-CoV-2. XNUMX in the countries of the northern hemisphere.
In addition to vaccines, Levine cited practical measures to prevent infection: covering your mouth and nose when sneezing or coughing (not with your hand but with the other part of your arm opposite your elbow), and staying home when someone feels sick.
On the other hand, the specialist recommended that during the high season of respiratory infections you wear a mask if you are in crowded places, if you are an older adult or if you have a high risk of serious respiratory diseases.
“There is not yet enough evidence to know whether wearing masks in public places in winter can save lives on a large scale. Personally, when I am in crowded places in winter, I wear a mask but only in exceptional circumstances should we consider this mandatory,” she stressed.
Public health policies - he added - must be based on science and avoid preventing people from carrying out their daily activities because that can also harm their health.
“We should explain to people that in winter you have to be more careful in public spaces and especially indoors. If the weather permits, we should open the windows and ventilate the rooms well to reduce the risks of transmission,” said Levine, who emphasized that it is not possible to predict how the flu season, COVID and other viruses will evolve.
A joint statement from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization summarized the epidemiological current situation: “With the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the circulation and health impact of other pathogens “It is a challenge to predict how the new winter period will develop.”
Source: ISRAEL21c