Covid stages comeback, and has company
A simultaneous outbreak of three diseases affecting the respiratory system has never been seen before, medical experts say. But this is what has happened at the start of 2024, with cases of Covid, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) affecting a significant percentage of the population.
Covid-19 cases have been surging since mid-November to levels last seen in the summer of 2022. The appearance of the new JN.1 sub-variant, which is highly contagious compared to other sub-variants, and the crowded indoor conditions over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, have facilitated this latest outbreak.
For the time being, the National Health System has been able to deal with the outbreak because the number of serious cases, at least until January 1, was limited.
“From December 18 to January 1, we had 49 Covid patients on ventilators, compared to 121 during the same period last year, and we had 140 announced deaths, down from 339,” Alternate Health Minister Eirini Agapidaki said in comments to Kathimerini.
The number of Covid-19 hospitalizations has increased, however, to 3,483 from December 18 to January 1, up from 2,924 last year.
Flu cases are also on the rise, with experts saying they had been at unusually low levels during the 2020-21 Covid pandemic. There had been many RSV cases among children last year and there are fewer now, but the experts worry about RSV, which results in mild symptoms among most people, spreading among the elderly and the immunocompromised, where it can lead to pneumonia.
Experts say that the Covid lockdowns protected the population from exposure to other viruses but at the same time kept our immune systems from developing resistance to them.
