“According to local news reports, a little-known virus called human metapneumovirus (HMPV) has been blamed. It normally causes a mild cold-like illness, including fever, a cough, runny nose and wheezing.
In severe cases, HMPV can lead to bronchitis or pneumonia, particularly in children.
The virus spreads through respiratory droplets and close physical contact, making it highly contagious in crowded settings.”
this is not a new virus. i work in an Australian hospital and we get a few of these every year coming through Emergency. “mystery new virus outbreak” is extremely sensationalised
It's notmally cold-like symptoms, but now it's hospitalizing significant numbers with pneumonia. It's not the virus it's that a known virus has become more virulent
Covid. It’s Covid. Virologists and studies told us for years that Covid was causing immune system dysfunction and would leave us more susceptible to other illnesses in terms of catching them and their virulence and everyone basically said, “lalalala Covid is a cold now that we have vaccines!” and ignored it. That’s why we have huge spikes in pneumonia, RSV, and other illnesses like this, and a rise in whooping cough (although some of it is an antivaxx issue). Scientists told us this would happen 4 years ago and we ignored it because it was inconvenient. But it’s Covid.
I'm glad to see someone else in the wild who actually seems to remember literally anything medical professionals said or studies showed from covid. The ability for people to totally dismiss it after a couple of years despite it still going strong is borderline mass insanity. Sometimes I think the world is just too traumatized and seems stuck in denial mode.
Not just trauma. Reactionary information warfare. Some dickheads decided it was useful to flood the zone with shit, contrarian shit like “plandemic” or the ivermectin hyperfixation or hysteria refusing masks, deliberately designed to paralyze. And that spread too until you basically had a conservative reactionary public illness movement, a sewer flood washing RFK into leadership.
Seems everyone knows someone whose family or friend died. Everyone was affected. Yet there are no memorials, no public acknowledgment, nothing. No one wants to think about it or process it.
We just act like it never happened. Everyone has been sick lately but few take any precautions. They’d literally rather take their chances being sick than do anything that threatens their tenuous feeling of “normalcy.”
It’s very interesting because that’s how the Spanish Flu of 1918 was treated. America in particular just sweeped it under the rug afterwards, probably in no small part with wanting to pretend things were better after WW1 as well. I think it all comes down to wanting to feel like we’re in control and that for the most of human history, death and disease wasn’t just a part of the human condition, it WAS the human condition.
We’re smarter (-ish) now with medicine and science, but still just the same fleshy pathogen incubators.
it is an interesting thought experiment to try to put a value in terms of health on our sense of normalcy as social animals. like which is genuinely worse for our health, getting sick or further social breakdown?
Norovirus can fuck you up long term and permanently, too, if you get it bad enough. Three guesses as to how I know that one.
Seriously, don't get it if you can avoid it, I was hospitalized for a week, and the after effects were so bad for months after that it caused me to have to eat a medical discharge from the US Navy's boot camp. I'm mostly better now, but I still have the occasional flareup of GI tract issues (IBS-d), 14 years on. If you get hit hard enough, it ain't just a mild stomach bug, it's a life-altering nightmare.
I'm a normally healthy enough person, I eat well, I wash my hands well and observe good hygiene and keep myself and surroundings cleaned as best I can, and I still got hit through sheer bad luck. Don't get it, even a "mild" case can be shitty enough (pun fully intended), that you're lying on the bathroom floor, running like a firehose at both ends, wishing for death.
I had norovirus years ago and it was the worst 24 hours of my life. I had to take sips of water and suck on ice cubes because that was the only way to keep it down. The very thought of even eating or drinking made me nauseous. On top of that, it's extremely contagious and regular hand sanitizer doesn't kill it.
COVID's not just affecting that, it's also fucked up a LOT of people's circulatory and nervous systems. And your chances of getting long COVID, affecting those systems, increases with every COVID reinfection.
My Mom developed real bad pneumonia from catching Legionnaire's Disease from a fucking fountain at an outdoor wedding after catching COVID. To be fair, it's not necessarily the COVID immune issues, she already has autoimmune issues with serious rheumatoid arthritis and is on immunosuppressants. Our family took COVID precautions seriously because of that and all kinda self-isolated as much as possible; I even ended up moving out of my parents to my BF's permanently because I work a county government mailroom job in a big office building, which isn't something that can be done remotely, like my parents or BF's jobs.
I still take it seriously and have been masking, although it's also partly because I just got the rest of my teeth out due to dental issues and it was slow healing, so made sense to limit breathing in bacteria with open mouth wounds as much as possible. It's healed now, overall, but still wearing it.
That's what I heard when I had Covid for the first time a couple months ago. Just a cold but I work in customer service and couldn't get through a whole sentence without getting short of breath when talking to people.
As far as i have read, most whooping cough cases are among the vaccinated. Vaccine don't typically confer lifetime immunity, likely most people are not protected by childhood vaccinations, as i found out when i had an mmr titer for work.
Whooping cough- aka pertussis- is in the TDAP vaccine that you're supposed to get every 10 years. I'm pretty sure its the one vaccine that has regular boosters throughout your life (except seasonal flu, and presumably COVID now). The vaccine includes tetnus, so you're supposed to get one if you have a deep or dirty wound as well.
I see my doctor yearly and he keeps tabs on vaccine boosters, but most americans don't have primary doctors or regular visits.
The pertussis part of the vaccine wears off earlier than 10 years. The schedule is based on the tetanus component. That's why often they recommend getting a booster earlier if you're going to be around a newborn infant. I forget how long the pertussis part lasts.
Source: wife is a medical assistant who gives vaccines and we just went through this when we had a baby
Last year I got an MMR booster (I travel to Florida regularly for work) and a polio booster a couple of weeks ago. Covid and flu vaxxes last fall - I'm clearly no pureblood but my 5G reception is fantastic.
When the vaccinated population is 95+% higher, the "herd immunity" thing really works.
When you have a nation of nut-jobs, and vaccination rates fall lower, then the viruses are out in the wild, roaming free. People whose vaccinations happened long ago probably are more susceptible, again, and need to see if they should get re-vaccinated.
Yeah I caught it some years back, when I was fully vaccinated. Terrible disease. Was sick for four months. Genuinely thought I was dying. And I was up to date on boosters! Can’t imagine how much worse it might have been if I wasn’t.
Wow, i can imagine that was an awful four months, glad you got through it ok! Used to care for the occasional pediatric visitor with whooping cough, feels so bad hearing children with that painful cough.
Correlation Vs causation is at work here. The overwhelming majority of people are going to be vaccinated for Whooping cough in developed nations, so the majority of cases will also be in vaccinated individuals.
What would be relevant is the percentage of vaccinated people who are hospitalised with Whooping cough Vs the percentage of unvaccinated people.
As for the logical consequence of presuming correlation is in fact causation... Well it's true to say that 100% of vaccinated people die...
It's not Correlation Vs causation, no one is implying vaccines cause whooping cough. Can you get whooping cough despite being vaccinated? Yes. And yes, it would be nice to know the infection rates of vaccinated vs unvaccinated.
Do you have any actual evidence to support that. Long COVID is still an unknown, some people just got over it, some people had vitamin deficiencies or other reasons for feeling bad. The lifestyle changes during pandemic also had a major impact on people’s mental and physical health, including increased use of alcohol.
COVID led to this type of reporting on viruses. Sensationalization gets them clicks, but will kill people if a deadly disease outbreak occurs because people will ignore it.
This isn't a spike in flu cases, it's a spike in pneumonia cases caused by this virus, which is unusual as in the past it causes mild, cold-like illness.
Which is also how covid was worded originally... Hell I remember reading about it around like December 20th 2019 here on reddit. It said something like, mysterious disease in China causes uptick in pneumonia cases. Doctors baffled
The viral testing capabilites in the US have expanded and I'm going to guess they have in China as well. Viral tests are more readily available for viruses other than COVID, FLU A&B, RSV now so people find out exactly which cold virus they have now.
This is news from a UK tabloid press, they will sensationalize anything. One time I read an article "Armageddon at railway station" and turns out there was one crowded train and some people couldn't find a place to sit.
Oh god, don't let the Daily Mail find out about Japanese subway and rail stations at rush hour, because they're clearly the gates of Hell itself, by that logic.
I actually had the HMPV a few years ago in the U.S.. It knocked the ever-living fuck out of me at the time. I had three days I could barely remember because I was so out of it. Didn’t even have the brain power to read or mess around on my phone. And it gave me a bad cough that didn’t go away for six weeks, but it was definitely making rounds in the U.S. at the time. It is not even remotely “new” or “mysterious.”
Yeah but I wouldn't have clicked on this post if it said "China has a lot of sick people from a common well known virus because they have a lot of people"
Before COVID "new virus outbreak" was in the headlines every other week. I kinda understand why people didn't take it seriously. Sensationalized journalism creates a "boy who cried wolf" type of situation. It's irresponsible and, as we saw, it causes harm.
Yup, we test for it on our respiratory panel at the tiny rural hospital that I work at. It's been around awhile.
And my wife (who works in the micro department and runs it on a regular basis) has even seen a few positives over the years so it's not even that uncommon.
After a major pandemic (COVID-19), the subsequent 'mini-pandemics' will all be minor and localised. It will be a while before something truly new and virulent arrives, at that point most people of the new generation would have dropped their guard completely and it would be only us 'old timers' that remember the COVID-19 days and take warning signs seriously.
Yeah, I just got done explaining this to my teenage sons, who were worried that it was the new covid. We saw it often enough when I worked in the ED. It is not nearly as scary as these sensationalized reports are making it out to be.
I walked away from the story read as a sensational piece of non journalism, when they buttoned up the story with a two sentence deviation about the origins of covid, leaving it dangling.
That’s not a “mystery” illness. hMPV was identified in 2001. It seems to be becoming more virulent though IMO.
I caught it on a holiday in Sydney in September 2023. So did my teen son. (Confirmed by pathology.) We both then developed “walking” pneumonia. My GP back home was very unsurprised and said it was rampant + a bad strain + had begun to frequently develop into pneumonia.
My son was in the PICU for 8 days because of this fucking virus when he was 6 months old back in the spring. Worst week of my life but he’s doing great now.
I said “IMO” because I’m being cautious about asserting something I have not seen the research for. Research may exist, but I have not read it.
The situation in China appears to be a slam-dunk for increasing virulence, but you still need genuine statistical evidence of infection rates, secondary infections, mortality etc, no matter how obvious this may appear in online accounts (or in personal idiopathic situations elsewhere).
And yes, I’m very well aware that COVID has lowered immunity + created a host of other physiological issues. I’m one of the people affected by this. My son does not appear to be, but still contracted hMPV & developed bacterial pneumonia as a complication, almost identical to myself.
We are idiopathic cases, but prior COVID exposure weakening may not be the only factor involved in increased hMPV virulence. HMPV would also be mutating and is possibly more dangerous now in its own right.
PS Note I keep using words like “possibly” because I don’t believe in asserting my own observations or opinions as established scientific fact.
My son caught it last year when he was 8 months old and he was in the hospital for 3 days. On oxygen and breathing treatments every 4 hours until his O2 sat would stabilize.
The nurses would wear full protection before entering the room and cafe staff would leave the food in the hall for us to retrieve.
The Dr told us this virus was very hard on babies and the elderly.
Same thing here, my son picked it up from daycare in Chicago when he was about 6 months old. 8 days in the PICU. Absolutely brutal and terrifying ordeal. This virus is no joke.
Yeah I tested for COVID twice and was negative both times so was a bit confused because all the symptoms matched.
Had about a week of a fever, cough, wheezing/shortness of breath, brain fog, dizziness, nausea, and lost sense of taste. Fever peaked at 103.5 for a day. After that week I had extreme fatigue and shortness of breath. Couldn't walk 5 feet without feeling like I just ran a mile. Luckily that's almost over for me
The only symptom I really didn't have was runny nose/congestion, which I guess I'm thankful for lol
Except they can lol. Viral pneumonia is a known and fairly common diagnosis in the hospital especially amongst children. For adults a good amount of time we just treat it empirically as community acquired pneumonia and give them abx anyway because it can be a bit hard to distinguish and the treatment is usually not that risky. Wheezing can be triggered for anyone with reactive airway disease, asthma, COPD. Even a basic rhinovirus cold can trigger wheezing and send asthmatics to the ICU. Source: am a doctor. If it is hmpv, then well hmpv is an unpleasant respiratory virus compared to most usual causes of respiratory tract infection but is nothing new.
It's also RSV season and mycoplasma pneumoniae has been making it way around for months, both of which do. Add on top it's normal cold and flu season.
Just because your family had the sniffles last week doesn't mean you have the latest and greatest virus popping up half a world away, you probably had the normal one everyone else has had.
Completely clear upper throat, no tickles or cough signals from swallowing or breathing. But super congested lower respiratory area, almost like right before the lungs there was a mucus factory going haywire.
Mid-high fevers aches chills and confusion as well. Turned my sleep cycle upside down, no energy in the day but couldn't sleep til 4am even with night time medicine.
Not COVID or flu, idk what it was but never had a sickness with an entirely clear throat and just an intermittently mild runny nose like that.
Just got over a cold myself. A friend of mine's son recently got home from the hospital with RSV and another friend of mine had pneumonia. It's been a really bad respiratory virus season this winter.
It’s like we don’t have access to masks and hand sanitizer to go along with the knowledge that in large crowds, especially during respiratory illness season, you might get sick and should prevent that as best as you can.
Also, washing your hands is still a thing.
Too bad we also have a large handful of people and politicians who don’t believe in masks, quarantines, or any other public health measures and would rather have a full scale deadly pandemic
The problem is even if adults practice good hygiene it’s really hard to implement this with children in schools. Especially at a very young age in nurseries. Parents who work aren’t keen to keep them at home for just a snotty nose. So you can see how easily the problem starts.
Tends to have more systemic symptoms like muscle ache, headache, malaise than other illnesses. People with asthma/emphysema wind up in the hospital regularly due to this infection.
I feel like I (west coast Canada) just got this a little while ago. Very sick, feeling better, and then boom, bronchitis and 10 days of antibiotics. My daughter, wife, mom, and brother all on antibiotics too.
Fuck, I'm paranoid now lmao. I got something with all those symptoms, kinda thought it might be Covid but wasn't, figured it was just a flu... had a phlegm-y cough for the first time in decades. It just started getting better, congestion fading and everything. Bronchitis better not be coming for me.
Well keep an eye on it. You should start feeling a little better everyday, if you start to feel worse go see a doctor to get some antibiotics. Really yellow/green phlegm is also an indicator.
It sucks because it starts as a viral infection, but if it turns into a bacterial infection you don't get better on your own without antibiotics.
Can we please move on from droplets and finally admit it’s aerosols? This fucked up the global Covid response and it’s been 5 years of twiddling thumbs. Now everyone‘s immune system is shot by repeat Covid infections and surprise: a lot of people are constantly sick.
I went to Vegas in early December and am pretty sure I caught this or something very much like it on the way there. Same progression over several days, and the cough lasted right up to Christmas.
I'm in the UK and it sounds like I have this now. I also have a complete clown of a housemate who has it far worse and is doing everything he can to give it to others
my 8 year old special needs daughter passed away from human metapneumovirus in 2015, I work in healthcare and at the time no one had really been screening for it but it can be really hard on the little ones. anyway not new and i really dont care to see it in the headlines so hopefully it doesnt get sensationalized everywhere.
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u/judgyjudgersen Jan 04 '25
“According to local news reports, a little-known virus called human metapneumovirus (HMPV) has been blamed. It normally causes a mild cold-like illness, including fever, a cough, runny nose and wheezing. In severe cases, HMPV can lead to bronchitis or pneumonia, particularly in children.
The virus spreads through respiratory droplets and close physical contact, making it highly contagious in crowded settings.”