One Pandemic at a Time

One Pandemic at a Time

The biggest threat across the country as we continue to see a steady rise in COVID-19 cases is what we may face in just a few months—Influenza. The 2019-2020 Influenza season was one of the most severe in recent years; the CDC reported more than 50,000,000 flu illnesses, 740,000 flu hospitalizations and 62,000 flu deaths. Of those, 188 were pediatric deaths [1]. As of August 25, COVID-19 has affected more than 5.7 million in the U.S. alone, with more than 178,000 deaths. Of those, 92 were pediatric deaths [1,2,3]. Despite the large number of COVID-19 cases both in the U.S and worldwide, there’s a lot we still don’t know about COVID-19. Evidence so far suggests that children with medical complexity (CMC) are at increased risk for severe illness and therefore our continued attention to this topic is of high value [4].