US whooping cough cases up six times more than last year

Just as cold and flu can spread easily during the Christmas season, so can whooping cough, which has hit six times as many people in 2024 than it did in 2023.

Dr. Jason Newland, chief of infectious diseases at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, said there have been 32,000 recorded cases of the disease in the United States this year, The Hill reported. The outlet also cited data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although not an epidemic and more like the rate that was common before the Covid pandemic, the CDC has noted the spike in cases in Pennsylvania and New York, with more than 2,000 infections this year as well as Ohio, Wisconsin, Washington and California, which have all registered more than 1,000 cases in 2024. Newland said it is often difficult to differentiate whooping cough, technically referred to as pertussis, from the common cold because the symptoms are so much alike with fever, runny nose and a cough. But while a cough due to cold can be relatively mild, it is anything but with whooping cough.

“The difference is the cough can come in paroxysms, but the better word for it is just a lot at one time, to where we hear that we say ‘whoop’ because you cough, cough, cough, cough, cough and then you go whoop because you’ve got to breathe,” Newland said, who recommends that children as young as two months be vaccinated against the disease.

“And then because the vaccine is not perfect, meaning it doesn’t provide me protection the rest of my life, you really need to get it every ten years,” Newland insisted, while noting that more people are opting not to get the vaccine, as per The Hill.

Some believe that the surge can be attributed in part to people not getting whooping cough vaccination during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“You and I, we get pertussis [whooping cough], we’re going to cough, and we’re going to cough a lot, and we might cough 100 days, and we might cough so much we break a rib, or we cough so much that we want to vomit, all terrible things, which is why I want my vaccine,” Newland said, observing that the cough can linger for up to a 100 days, even when treated.

Babies are most apt to catch the disease. “They can come to the hospital not breathing,” Newland said. “They can have neurologic conditions making them seize and they can die.” He recommended that people use common sense at social gatherings to avoid catching pertussis – beginning with staying away from anyone at an event who appears to have it.

Antibiotics are used to cure whooping cough and these work with the vast majority of patients. Newland advised keeping infants out of harm's way especially.