A surge in respiratory illnesses among children in China swamping hospitals

The infectious disease community is closely watching a surge of mystery illnesses in China that many have compared to the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. The World Health Organization (WHO) says known pathogens cause the spike and does not pose a global threat. After the terrible job, they did on COVID-19, and how they partnered with China, their reputation as health experts has become unbelievable to many people. Hospitals in northern China appear to be “overwhelmed with sick children” as the country grapples with a surge in respiratory illnesses and clusters of pneumonia. Covid-19 started in a Wuhan laboratory, and China lied about it. The last outbreak killed the old worldwide, and now, in China, an outbreak is in the young. At the Beijing Children’s Hospital in the capital, people were waiting to register for a room. Waiting rooms were crowded with parents and children, some of them on IV drips. Scientists feel obliged to follow the orders of the Chinese Communist Party, and “since China is under the rule of a strongman, it is about how one man, Xi Jinping, decides how things are to be done. No one dares to do anything that can be seen as suggesting China had done something wrong at the start of the Covid pandemic. Everyone hopes that nothing like Covid emerges from China again, but scientists are not very optimistic that China has learned its lesson. The increase in respiratory diseases coincides with the end of China’s National Day holiday week, one of its busiest travel periods. Hospitals in Beijing and elsewhere in China were “overwhelmed with sick children” amid outbreaks of pneumonia, but China has reported limited data so far, like the COVID-19 outbreak. Will countries do a travel ban early or wait till it is too late as they did with COVID-19?

A surge in respiratory illnesses among children in China swamping hospitals

Share this: