Even though the new coronavirus no longer poses a threat, the world has not yet emerged from the shock of the post-epidemic era. This year, various respiratory diseases have occurred, new coronavirus variants have invaded, hospital patients have increased sharply, and some countries with insufficient medical resources have begun to collapse. This winter, the Italian flu and the new coronavirus variant circulated simultaneously, causing the number of hospital admissions to increase by 30% compared with before the epidemic. Local media reported that there were emergencies from Milan to Rome to Naples where hospitals were unable to wait for beds.
An outbreak of respiratory diseases began in China last fall, attracting global attention. However, in fact, countries that lifted the lockdown earlier had already experienced waves of epidemic storms. In the winter of 2022, the United States experienced a “triple epidemic” caused by COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus. Put pressure on hospitals. Australia in the southern hemisphere is also experiencing a particularly severe flu season. Even in the winter of 2023, the U.S. respiratory illness season is starting earlier than in previous years.
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The Italian epidemic is very strange
Now this pressure has spread to Europe. According to local media statistics in Italy, in the week from December 21 to 27, 2023, Italy had 40,990 new cases of new coronary pneumonia. This number has already dropped 32.2% from the previous week, and the number of deaths for 279 people. But while COVID-19 cases are down, flu pressure is rising and other viruses are raging, hospitals are overwhelmed and emergency rooms are overwhelmed.
More than 5.7 million influenza cases were reported in Italy in the fourth quarter of last year. In the week before Christmas, the influenza epidemic curve showed an incidence rate that had never been reached in previous seasons. Local doctors said it was the worst influenza epidemic in 15 years. Local media described hospital emergencies as very serious, and occurred in many major cities in Italy. From Rome, Turin, Milan to Naples in the south, there were insufficient medical resources.
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Entire cities are being inundated with respiratory cases of the flu and COVID-19, and emergency rooms are in chaos and on the verge of collapse. According to the Italian Association of Emergency Medicine and Urgent Care, the worst situation is in Rome and its region, where more than 1,100 patients are waiting to be admitted, and ambulances parked in front of emergency rooms are being used as extra beds for patients.
In the northern Italian regions of Piedmont, Lombardy and the capital Milan, normal hospital admissions have been suspended in order to free up beds for patients in need of emergency assistance. Naples is treating a continuous influx of COVID-19 patients. The situation in Italy led epidemiologist Eric Feigl Ding to say on social media that “something very strange is happening in Italy.”
The world has not yet escaped the haze of the new coronavirus
The same is true in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, influenza illnesses, including non-influenza viruses such as coronavirus, are at a very high level across the United States. Dr. Peter Chin Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco, said that all respiratory viruses are raging, respiratory syndromic virus (RSV) has not really started to decline, and influenza is just rising now, and then as the new coronavirus epidemic caused by new variants spreads, The peak of the epidemic has not yet arrived.
COVID-19 remains the leading cause of new respiratory hospitalizations and deaths in the United States, killing approximately 1,000 people each week. Scientists say that after the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the past few years, countries around the world are now very reluctant to vaccinate. However, in the face of successive viruses, controlling the number of hospitalizations is key, and vaccination is still the best line of defense to avoid the collapse of medical resources. .
(Source of first image:Unsplash)
2024-01-05 16:48:14
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