Hospitals may face severe and prolonged winter virus seasons in the coming years that strain resources and hinder the capacity to care for other patients, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha, MD, told The Washington Post.
Historically, the respiratory virus season has always placed a burden on hospital resources, but COVID-19's emergence has compounded these challenges. Dr. Jha predicts this trend will continue, with future virus seasons beginning closer to August or September, as opposed to October.
"I am worried that we are going to have, for years, our health system being pretty dysfunctional, not being able to take care of heart attack patients, not being able to take care of cancer patients, not being able to take care of the kid who’s got appendicitis because we’re going to be so overwhelmed with respiratory viruses for … three or four months a year," he told the Post in a Jan. 12 report.
Dr. Jha's prediction marks a darker scenario than the White House has previously shared and underscores the harsh reality that COVID-19 will pose ongoing challenges for years, according to the Post.
"I just think people have not appreciated the chronic cost, because we have seen this as an acute problem," Dr. Jha said. "We have no idea how hard this is going to make life for everybody, for long periods of time."