With reports of the first human death from bird flu in the US, some Americans are feeling an uncomfortable flashback to the early days of Covid-19, when infectious disease experts were talking about a new virus that was sending people to the hospital with respiratory infections. Although both viruses can cause breathing problems, they are very different.

Five Republican senators are demanding that President Joe Biden implement a ban on travel from China in response to reports of a “mystery illness” infecting Chinese children.

A spike in respiratory infections in children in China has caused alarm around the globe, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is no cause for concern.

China told the World Health Organization the spike is being caused by known viruses like the flu, COVID-19 and RSV and is not the result of a new pathogen.

CDC Director Mandy Cohen testified on Capital Hill that the agency has no reason to believe there is an unknown virus circulating.

“We do not believe this is a new or novel pathogen, we believe this is all existing, meaning COVID,...

The United States is seeing a significant spike in respiratory illness among children.

Sick kids are crowding emergency rooms in various parts of the country, and some pediatric hospitals say they are running out of beds. But this uptick in illness has largely been due to viruses other than the coronavirus, like RSV, enteroviruses and rhinovirus.

While respiratory infections typically surge in the winter months, experts say that this year the season has started much sooner, and that numbers are unusually high.