hawkes suggests the pattern could be explained by immunity to the viruses they studied waning over a period of a year.
“a strong, bad year for viruses will be followed the next year with a high percentage of immune (people) in the population and so the virus can’t take off as well in the next season,” he said.
“on the other hand, in a good year, a low-infection year, there won’t be quite as many immunes going into the following winter and therefore the virus can take off.”
being aware of the predictable pattern means hospitals can know what’s coming and prepare, he said.
in the case of rsv, more at-risk infants could be given a preventative antibody treatment, he said.
“we need to plan resources for these winter waves of hospitalizations. in january a lot of our wards are full of infants with rsv, and so you need to plan bed numbers and nursing staff to accommodate for that,” he said.
hawkes said the pattern shows that this coming december and january are going to see high case numbers.
“because in covid no one went out, no one caught rsv. it was an extremely low year … there were hardly any hospitalizations in cases of rsv last year,” he said.
the research itself did not look specifically covid-19 but four of the viruses that were studied are similar. that could mean covid-19 would follow a similar pattern but hawkes said the virus is too new and impacted by restrictions to know for sure.