Overview

• Respiratory illness cases, particularly among children, have spiked in China, with the country's National Health Commission attributing the increase to known pathogens and the lifting of coronavirus restrictions.
• Experts suggest that China's stringent anti-COVID measures, which were dropped less than a year ago, left children's immune systems unprepared, resulting in the preponderance of younger patients.
• Despite concerns from GOP lawmakers, CDC Director Mandy Cohen and other public health experts do not believe this is a new or novel pathogen, describing the situation as the usual fluctuations of any respiratory virus season.
• China's National Health Commission expects cases to peak in the next 2-3 weeks, but infections could last through next spring.
• Health authorities such as the WHO have repeatedly asked China for further epidemiological data.