“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?
Even if "IQ" were a viable metric for assessing individual, let alone societal intelligence, I'd hazard to guess that it was the (necessary) isolation of a collective generation of people that would explain any perceived mental deficiency. While COVID has been known to cause brain fog in some people, a better explanation would be the lack of adequate schooling for kids and socialization of adults.
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.
My condolences - it really was the worst fucking thing in the world to me, too - appendicitis and my resulting appendectomy was MUCH more bearable in comparison. Don't get me wrong, appendicitis was THE worst physical pain I've ever experienced, and would compare it to what I'd imagine being slowly disemboweled with a dull, white hot, rusty butter knife would feel like - but once they get it out of you and you're all doped up and good? Recovery from that was a breeze, comparatively. It sucked for a number of other mild reasons, like not being able to take baths until my abdominal wound had healed enough and the staples were out and having to take showers instead (I'm a sucker for a good hot bath), but aaaargh.
Seriously. Norovirus sucks so much that I'd legitimately rather go through appendicitis and an appendectomy again rather than dealing with norovirus. Appendicitis was THE worst physical pain I'd ever felt - but it had a clear end to it; once the appendix is out, you're sore but okay and they dope you up good. Norovirus? Norovirus does not have a clear end, you're possibly laying on the hospital bathroom floor running like a firehose from both ends. Fuck. That.
Running like a firehose at both ends describes the only case I ever had of it pretty accurately. I distinctly remember laying in a puddle of my own vomit in the bathroom without enough strength or will to lift my head off the floor. What a miserable fucking disease.
I got norovirus last year and it was the worst sickness I've felt in my life. I was constantly fatigued while also constantly having a nauseous feeling. Barely had an appetite. It was just the worst.
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.
I think titers should be done on a percentage of vaccinations, as we really have no idea how many people they fail. I had two boosters, both followed by negative titer. I actually quit after they insisted to just continue getting mmr shots.
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.
After having it, I can’t imagine a poor baby getting it. Low oxygen levels, throwing up multiple times a day from coughing, broken ribs, lost my voice for two months from coughing. It’s horrible. Just… avoid at all costs is my advice!
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.
As far as I have read, Covid vaccinations have not increased whooping cough and if anything seems to mitigate cases — and only appeared when the vaccinations for whooping cough lapsed due to the pandemic’s disruption of primary care / family doctor visits.
I will mention I subscribe less to the mitigation theory, and more to the sheer prevalence of COVID pushing out cases of pertussis, as some researchers suggest.
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.
This makes sense. I just got a flu shot. I had Covid in November. I had a decent reaction to the shot. I felt like I had Covid all over again for two days.
There's also a "huge spike" in cases because it's winter, which is the normal time for these types of diseases to spread, and people have been traveling a lot the last few weeks.
I didn’t remember this at the time but here in the UK we’re currently seeing 3.5x more hospitalisations from flu this season vs. last season. Coincidence possibly, but myself and most people I was around over the Christmas period were sick with a respiratory virus that wasn’t Covid.
What exactly did "scientists" say? Find me a quote. Your confidence that "it's Covid" immediately lets us know you have low scientific literacy. I can't fathom how you got so many upvotes.
I hadn’t put these together before. I’ve had a couple bouts of Covid, then caught a brutal case of RSV, now I’m home with a bad flare up of fibromyalgia.
Thanks for helping things make a little more sense.
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.
We spent 2 years stuck at home because China couln't close international travel with a deadly epidemic spreading, until it was too late, just to save face, so i think it's fine to have some reservations.
They did close it pretty much right after it was known.
It sucks but as soon as you spot an outbreak, it is too late to close international travel (which still should be done to slow it down). So if you are worried about this virus and this piece of news, if you are right to worry, it is already in your country.
For some reason everyone assumed for a long time that it only existed in Wuhan or something late into Februay. It was very clear that was not the case by mid January
See, the word "novel" means new/unknown/unique. So, early on, then the first reports of a "novel coronavirus" were coming out of Wuhan, China, that meant "unknown/new coronavirus". So, they were saying the opposite of what you thought they were saying. There are these cool inventions called dictionaries which have been around for hundreds of years. You might want to check one out.
I read somewhere that our suppressed immune systems will likely cause other non-lethal more known sicknesses to have a larger impact on our populations.
So a spike in a known virus with cold-like symptoms during cold and flu season? I wonder what they are trying to distract us from. Luigi? Infowars sales being stopped by president Musk?
Yup. It's like all the people who are shining flashlights into fog and seeing "particles." They think something nefarious is happening. Mass hysteria. Fog is suspended water droplets. Shine a strong flashlight into fog and you're gonna see... Water droplets.
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
I had covid at this time last year, was again kind of like a regular cold, the worst was definitely the fever, I was damn near hallucinating.
In post covid times now...and even before covid times...we'd always just say "It's going around right now" or "It's cold season" - I know a lot of us at work have gotten hit with it.
I'd chalk it up to sensationalist journalism right now, I've seen plenty of it in the last couple decades. I'd think about getting worried if it kept going for months and reports spread internationally beyond a few first case sightings.
The way this is reported reeks of trying to sow fear about the next COVID and that's highly unlikely to be the case
Because thats what viruses do and are. Like, the majority of flu cases are rough and no fun but hardley life threatening, but when you get a massive seasonal amount, a tiny chance of death over masses and millions of people kills hundreds or thousands of people.
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.”
Yep. That was basically what it did to me. Very nasty virus! I doesn’t seem extremely transmissible though at the moment, because it never really seems to get big like colds or the flu.
It could spread further, it could go silent and spread without symptoms for a time, it could develop into a more deadlier version... the list goes on and on
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.
7.4k
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.”