Thread by @DrEricDing

Masks are coming off—the cold and flu is now back. Coincidence? No. The CDC just issued a health advisory about increased cases of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, across parts of the southern US — something CDC hadn’t seen since April 2020. #MaskOn
bostonglobe.com/2021/06/14/met…

2) RSV is a cold-like respiratory illness that produces symptoms similar to COVID, and can cause severe illness in older adults and young children. It disappeared for a year because of #COVID19 mitigations. It’s now back because masks are coming off, especially in the South.

3) Since the state’s mask mandate was lifted at the end of May, face coverings have started to come off — and stay off. But according to infectious diseases doctors, the return of facial freedom might come with some downsides, like a resurgence in cases of the common cold and flu

4) Throughout the pandemic, precautions taken to stop the spread of COVID-19 all but eliminated other common viruses.

Not any more.

5) “Most of us in infectious disease really attributed that to masks — not just masks, but the combination of masks, people working largely from home, social distancing, all of those measures in place for the last year,” said Dr. Joshua Barocas, of Boston Medical Center.

6) But as vaccination rates increase and such precautions are slowly scrapped, other viruses will start to resurge, starting with colds and other viruses later this summer, and the flu come fall and winter.

7) here is CDC’s warning:

“The CDC is issuing this health advisory to notify clinicians and caregivers about increased interseasonal respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity across parts of the Southern United States.”
emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/han00…

8) “Due to this increased activity, CDC encourages broader testing for RSV among patients presenting with acute respiratory illness who test negative for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. RSV can be associated with severe disease in young children and older adults.”

9) “Compared with previous years, RSV activity remained relatively low from May 2020 to March 2021. However, since late March, CDC has observed an increase in RSV detections reported to the NREVSS, a nationwide passive, laboratory-based surveillance network.

10) “CDC noted increases in laboratory detections and in the percentages of positive detections for both antigen and PCR testing in parts of HHS Region 4 (AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, and TN) and Region 6 (AR, LA, NM, OK, and TX).”

Any correlation for these states?