Covid is making common virues act bizarrely, doctors warn

Missed vaccinations and extended periods at home are affecting virus spread

In addition to killing more than 1 million people in the US alone, Covid is also affecting how other common and obscure diseases alike affect the population, doctors warn.

Doctors at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital in Connecticut, for example, have reported a flood of patients with cases of the adenovirus, rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human metapneumovirus, influenza and parainfluenza, as well as Covid.

“That’s not typical for any time of year and certainly not typical in May and June,” Thomas Murray, an infection-control expert and associate professor of pediatrics at Yale, told The Washington Post.

Rhinovirus, for example, rarely sends people to the hospital, while the flu has made an untimely resurgence after seeming to fade in January at the same time the Omicron variant took hold.

This follows 2020 and 2021’s flu seasons, which were some of the mildest on record in terms of deaths and hospitalisations.

“We’ve never seen a flu season in the U.S. extend into June,” Dr Scott Roberts, another Yale medical expert, said earlier this month. “Covid has clearly had a very big impact on that. Now that people have unmasked, places are opening up, we’re seeing viruses behave in very odd ways that they weren’t before.”

The viruses may be cropping up unexpectedly during the summer because many stayed home during winter surges of Covid, when the conditions typically spread.

Other conditions like monkeypox and tuberculosis may have quietly spread as the majority of public health resources were dedicated to tracking Covid.

Washington state has experienced its worst wave of TB in 20 years, while the World Health Organisation warned in early June that monkeypox may have been spreading within communities for “months or possibly a couple of years.”

Doctors also warn that various viruses may be surging in children because they missed out on primary care and regular, non-Covid vaccinations in recent years.

“During the Covid pandemic, access to primary care, including childhood vaccinations, was unavailable to many children,” Jennifer Horney, professor of epidemiology at the University of Delaware, told CNBC. “To prevent increases in these diseases, catch-up vaccination campaigns are needed globally.”