Health Wanted: Winter Respiratory Viruses
HEALTH WANTED, a weekly radio show and podcast produced in partnership with WABE, brings need-to-know public health headlines and breaks down the science behind trending topics.
The Episode
The topic: With fall approaching, we can expect to see an increase in respiratory illnesses, beyond just COVID-19 and the flu. On this week’s episode of Health Wanted, host Laurel Bristow and guest Benjamin Lopman, PhD, talk about what diseases to look out for this fall and the challenges of developing vaccines for certain types of illnesses.
The takeaway: Fall and winter often see a rise in many respiratory infections. Staying up to date on what illnesses are predicted for the season, getting vaccinated, and practicing public health hygiene practices are some of the best prevention methods you can use to stay well.
- COVID-19 has decreased over time as an underlying or contributing cause of death, but many people are still getting infected. Staying up to date on vaccines is a great way to protect yourself from serious illness. Although it is challenging to develop vaccines that specifically target the latest strains of COVID-19 because of how often they change, COVID-19 vaccines are still effective at preventing serious disease across variants even if not specifically targeted to that strain.
- Human parvovirus B19 is a lesser-known respiratory virus to watch out for this year that spreads through droplets, like the flu. It typically causes small outbreaks every three to four years and is most common in children aged 5-9. Symptoms can include a red rash on the face alongside muscle pain, cough, sore throat, and joint pain.
- The flu is another classic winter respiratory illness, infecting tens of millions of people annually and leading to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations. While flu vaccines are great at lessening the risk of serious illness, they do not necessarily prevent you from getting sick. Over the past decade, the flu vaccine has been designed to protect against four different flu strains.
- Several other viruses peak in the colder months including respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), human metapneumovirus, and norovirus (though not a respiratory virus, it still peaks in the winter). You can protect yourself from many serious illnesses this fall and winter by practicing good hand hygiene, wearing a mask around sick people, and getting vaccinated for what you can.
The Interview
The guest: Benjamin Lopman, PhD
The key takeaways:
- Diarrheal diseases are especially common during the winter in the U.S., but they are a major year-round threat to the health of people worldwide, especially children. The development of the rotavirus vaccine has saved hundreds of thousands of children from death, but half a million kids die each year from other diarrheal illnesses worldwide.
- There are a variety of vaccines in the research pipeline for norovirus, but none are effective yet. Developing a vaccine is always a complicated process, but it is especially so for a norovirus vaccine because of how much the virus adapts and changes.
- The level of COVID-19 circulating in the population is driven by complicated infectious disease interactions. While it is not considered a seasonal disease, COVID-19 could shift over time to be more of a wintertime illness like other respiratory diseases such as flu and RSV.
- Emory Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Training Hub is a new center for infectious disease research. It is part of a larger national CDC-run network of centers working to be more prepared to respond to future infectious disease outbreaks, like a National Weather Service for infectious disease.
The Listener Questions
How can I avoid nanoplastic exposure from plastic piping in my home?
There is evidence that water treatment plants remove a large number of microplastics with their filtration systems. But that doesn't do a lot when the water has left the facility and is traveling through your plastic pipes and out the faucet.
Tap water still has, on average, half as many plastic particles as bottled water. And if you get a good home water filter that can remove microplastics, it can reduce that amount even more.
Remember what Dr. Carmin Marsit said on our microplastics episode though. It’s all about reducing your exposure where you can, because plastics are, unfortunately, inescapable.
Should I take my shoes off in my home?
Outdoor shoes bring things inside like bacteria and potentially lead or other heavy metals. But do any dogs that live with you!
Taking shoes off can reduce your exposure by a percentage, but I don’t personally feel wearing shoes inside is THAT horrifying. There are germs everywhere and we are exposed to them outside too. I would probably feel differently if I had a baby crawling on the floor.
I don’t think there’s a huge consensus about shoes on or off in the infectious disease community. Shoes off certainly does reduce the load of cleaning and wear and tear on floors and carpets, though.
The best, happiest medium is probably house shoes.
Catch all the listener questions and Laurel’s answers on the full episode of Health Wanted by:
- Streaming at wabe.org or the WABE app
- Subscribing on Apple or Spotify
- Watching on WABE's YouTube channel
