Whooping cough cases approach near record numbers
According to Dr. Jason Newland, chief of infectious diseases at Nationwide Children's Hospital, there are over 32,000 recorded cases this year alone in the U.S., which is six times greater than last year.
The most up-to-date data from the CDC, which was released in early November, showed Pennsylvania and New York had reported the most cases of whooping cough at more than 2,000 each. Ohio, Wisconsin, Washington, and California all have more than 1,000 cases reported so far.
Dr. Newland said whooping cough, sometimes referred to as pertussis, often presents similar symptoms as the common cold. This can include fever, runny nose, and eventually an aggressive 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,' he said.
Dr. Newland said the whooping cough vaccine is the best way to prevent the infection, starting at two months old.
'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,' Dr. Newland said. He noted, however, that fewer people are getting vaccinated.
Experts believe the 2024 surge in cases may be in part because of missed vaccinations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Widespread masking in 2020 and 2021 also helped prevent spreading of the bacteria that causes pertussis. Now, the disease is back with a vengeance, and we're seeing more cases than we did in 2019.
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'You and I, we get pertussis, 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,' Dr. Newland said. The linger cough associated with pertussis has also earned it another name: the 100-day cough.
Infants are the most susceptible to catching the illness.
'They can come to the hospital not breathing,' Dr. Newland said. 'They can have neurologic conditions making them seize and they can die.'
If you have any other holiday gatherings this year, he recommends taking proper precautions.
'You can always wear a mask to prevent things like pertussis, things like RSV, things like influenza,' Dr. Newland said. 'Influenza's rip-roaring right now.'
He advised those seeking to shield themselves from pertussis to wash their hands frequently, and maintain distance from those who are infected.
'We learned these things during the pandemic. We can keep doing that to protect us against pertussis and all of these respiratory illnesses.'
The treatment for whooping cough is simple, with many people able to recover with the help of antibiotics. Experts are, however, concerned about the illness because it's an airborne disease, making it highly contagious.
'If we all get vaccinated [before we are] going to be around the youngest and most vulnerable, we help protect them even more,' Dr. Newland said. 'So, having 30,000 cases is scary because you know there's some infants in that and you're putting others at risk.'
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In late June, a few days before Disability Pride Month began, I took my 7-year-old child on an outing to an Ikea store. As I filled out a waiver so he could enter the store's small play area, I noticed I was the only parent present. It turned out that parents typically drop off their children while they shop, but that wasn't an option for me. My son has a rare, severe form of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome, among other medical conditions, and he can't be without a grown-up carrying his seizure rescue medication, as I was. The scary reality is that around one in five children with Dravet syndrome die in childhood because the seizures can be so severe. There is currently no cure. I explained this to a staff member and told her that I'd need to be in the room with my child. She informed me that no parents were allowed into the play area. 'But isn't there a policy for kids with disabilities?' I asked. She told me a service dog could accompany a child, but a parent could not. I stopped signing the form. I said to the staff member, 'That's discrimination against kids with disabilities.' She didn't respond. I hadn't known about the store's play area before this visit, and I had been happy to see that it wasn't a playground ― just a space with toys like a train set and dart board. Since my son had a seizure at an indoor playground a year ago, I'd stopped taking him to them. But now, even this play space was not an option for him. My child and I were both upset. He loves going to Ikea to walk through the showroom and eat in the cafeteria ― a place open enough that it was the only indoor restaurant he ate in during our four years of masking during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have several Ikea furniture items, including bunk beds, a coat/shoe cubby and a toy chest. He helped us build them all. Since his severe seizures began about two years ago, he's had to change his life in significant ways. Heat, sports, just running around to play, illness and excitement have all become triggers for him. Summer is especially hard — on hot days, he can't be outside. In fact, we had driven the hour to Ikea in traffic just so he could walk and have a change of scenery in a large, air-conditioned space because the temperature outside was dangerous for him. I told him, 'This isn't OK.' He said, 'We should talk to someone.' I was proud of him. After talking to a few staff members, we spoke with a manager, who said he wasn't familiar with the policy, and he'd get back to me the next day. He didn't. Later, I looked online, and there was a section on the Ikea website directing caretakers of children with disabilities to start a conversation with the Ikea store manager about how the child can best have their needs accommodated in the play area. I was hopeful that when we went in the future, we could show the policy to the staff. However, that doesn't undo the pain my child felt after hearing that he wasn't welcome in that play space because of his disabilities. During the hour-long car ride home afterward, we talked a lot about discrimination. I reinforced that what happened wasn't OK, and that the more than 3 million kids with disabilities in our country deserve to be included. I told him about my older sister, his late aunt, who had microcephaly and faced various barriers to equal access too, like having to sit on the sidelines of playgrounds in her wheelchair. It upset me. When I was 10 in 1993, I read about new accessible playgrounds in an issue of Scholastic News, and I hoped we could build one for her. Sadly, she died a few weeks later, but in her memory, my family and I worked with the Cincinnati Parks Department to build an accessible playground. My son thought that was cool. I also explained that many groups of people face discrimination for reasons such as gender, race, sexual orientation, immigration status and more, and we need to be allies and stand up against all forms of discrimination. I also told him that one way to help is to make disabilities more visible and raise awareness, as we have done in his school class for the past three years. This June, for Dravet Syndrome Awareness Month, he and I held a neighborhood lemonade and cupcake fundraiser and donated money to the Dravet Syndrome Foundation, which helps fund the kind of critical epilepsy research that the Trump administration has recently cut. After our experience at Ikea, as one of his bedtime books, we re-read the picture book All the Way to the Top, about a child who protested and helped advocate for the Americans with Disabilities Act, which passed 35 years ago. Afterward, I told him about children with disabilities who went to Congress this summer, asking their leaders not to make it harder for them to go to the doctor and get the medicine and treatment they need. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump's domestic policy bill has since passed, and many people, including children with disabilities, will be harmed as a result. Two days after the bill passed, my child woke up and said, 'I want to make a sign about disabilities.' He asked for my help with spelling before writing the words 'People with disabilities are important' in pencil and then tracing over them with marker. He stood by our Disability Pride yard sign, and then, since the temperature was cooler out, he walked down our street and held it up for cars passing by. He said that when he grows up, he wants to be an 'activist' and 'protester.' I told him that he already is. [Editor's Note: HuffPost reached out for a response, and Ikea US issued the following statement: 'At IKEA, we strive to offer a safe and inclusive environment for children to play while in our stores. Our Småland policies are in place to keep children safe when they are in our space. Regarding this family's recent experience in our College Park, MD store, we are incredibly sensitive to feelings of exclusion, and so we have shared information with the family about our accommodations process, so that they may have a more positive experience at IKEA. We are constantly working to improve how we create an inclusive space while maintaining policies that keep all children safe.']
