What’s Happening Other Than COVID-19?

While COVID-19 is taking its toll on the world, influenza is still impacting the world. As of April 6th, 2020 new numbers concerning the influenza season have surfaced. According to the CDC, between 39 million and 55 million flu illnesses were estimated with at least 400,000 hospitalizations. 63,000 deaths from flu have also been reported in which 162 were pediatric deaths. Influenza B has also been reported to have more cases earlier in the year than in previous years. Usually, influenza A has more cases earlier in the year and is followed by the slower developing influenza B. Professionals estimate that the high rate of influenza B earlier in the year suggests the reasoning behind the lower rate of deaths and hospitalizations due to the flu since influenza B primarily impacts children and younger adults than the elderly. The CDC also reports that the vaccine has greatly decreased the amount of medical attention the flu has required this year.

Additionally, on February 10th of 2020, Los Angeles was hit with another outbreak of measles. An unvaccinated international traveler arrived in California and infected five people. While only five confirmed cases is a very low number, as we have seen with COVID-19, five people can turn into a large number of cases very quickly if many people are unvaccinated. This isn’t the first outbreak of measles in Los Angeles either. In 2019 Los Angeles reported 20 measles cases along with 14 nonresidential cases. Overall the United States experienced 1,282 cases in 31 states in 2019. This has been the greatest number of cases since 1992. All of these cases could have been prevented if people would vaccinate. It is crazy to think that with everything going on with COVID-19 people still may choose to not vaccinate. However, it will be interesting to track some diseases like measles in the following years to see if COVID-19 causes the vaccination rates to increase and a decrease in many of these diseases.

It’s interesting to me to think that in the midst of COVID-19 there are still people getting sick and recovering from other illnesses. Due to all the media attention surrounding the COVID-19 crisis, I feel that other diseases that are potentially more serious are being overshadowed. It’s also extremely interesting to think about how many people are avoiding going to the doctor unless it is extremely necessary. With that in mind, it’s interesting to think about how many people crowd medical professional offices and emergency rooms unnecessarily and how many thousands of dollars that is a year. While COVID-19 is an extremely big deal and I understand the necessity to inform the public, it’s hard to think that many other global issues are getting little to no media coverage.