The White House says it is monitoring the surge in respiratory illness in China but there is no indication of a link between people seeking care in U.S. emergency departments and the outbreak in Beijing and surrounding regions.

Based on its provisional assessment, the U.S. and other countries are seeing seasonal trends in respiratory illnesses and nothing is out of the ordinary, a Biden administration official said Monday.

Pneumonia cases in children are unexpectedly surging in the Netherlands at an alarming rate — at the same time as China continues to grapple with a tidal wave of respiratory illnesses threatening to overwhelm its hospitals.

Last week, 80 out of every 100,000 children in the Netherlands between ages 5 and 15 were treated for pneumonia, reported the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL).

Pneumonia cases among tots ages 4 and under were also on the rise, jumping from 124 to 145 per 100,000.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is communicating with health officials in China as fears grow over an outbreak of infectious respiratory diseases that has caused clusters of pneumonia among children in the north of the country.

David Daigle, a spokesperson for the federal agency, told Newsweek that it would "continue to monitor the situation, collaborating with global health partners" over the increase in illness, and was "in touch with local health authorities and its country office in China."