|
|
|
If you’ve been wondering whether you and your loved ones are really getting sick more often since the Covid pandemic, it’s not your imagination. After seeing reports of illness everywhere — from our teammates and friends to Reddit threads exploding with stories of personal misery — my colleague Jinshan Hong and I began digging. In a weekslong investigation released over the weekend,
we found that at least 13 communicable diseases — from the common cold
to measles and tuberculosis — are surging past pre-pandemic levels in
regions across the world. Bloomberg’s analysis, done with London-based disease forecasting firm Airfinity Ltd.,
collated data from more than 60 organizations and public health
agencies. The research also found that 44 countries and territories have
a reported resurgence in one or more infectious diseases that’s at
least ten times worse than the pre-Covid baseline. Cases of Dickensian-era whooping cough — known for coughing fits so violent that some people break their ribs — have climbed by 45 times in China in the first four months compared with last year. Measles — declared eliminated in the US in 2000 — is making a comeback in more than 20 American states, and is rising in the UK and parts of Europe. | |
So why are we seeing this post-Covid surge in illnesses from viral to bacterial, from common to historically rare?
It’s
a mystery that researchers and scientists are still working to
definitively explain. The way Covid lockdowns shifted baseline
immunities is just one piece of the puzzle, as is the backslide in
vaccination levels since the pandemic.
Climate
change, rising social inequality and wrung-out health-care services are
also contributing in ways that are hard to measure. And there’s no
historical precedent from which we can draw lessons.
Every family is navigating these unchartered waters one bout of sickness at a time.
For
Rong Bing, a 37-year-old mother in Shanghai, a family trip has become
just another word for “nightmare” since last year. In February, Rong’s
husband and four-year-old daughter came down with fevers during a visit
to southern China. She cut the trip short and returned with their
daughter, whose blood tests showed a mycoplasma infection.
“I won’t organize any family trips anytime soon — it’s nothing but a torture,” she said. “These pathogens are ruthless.” —Bhuma Shrivastava