Why the study?
EV-D68 dynamics were significantly perturbed by non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19, presenting a natural experiment to explore endemic infection dynamics and predict future trends.
How do COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions impact the short- and medium-term dynamics of enterovirus D68 in the US?
How do COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions impact the short- and medium-term dynamics of enterovirus D68 in the US?
COVID-19 non-pharmaceutical interventions perturbed EV-D68 dynamics, with modeling suggesting a low likelihood of a large outbreak in 2023.
Recent outbreaks of enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) infections, and their causal linkage with acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), continue to pose a serious public health concern. During 2020 and 2021, the dynamics of EV-D68 and other pathogens have been significantly perturbed by non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19; this perturbation presents a powerful natural experiment for exploring the dynamics of these endemic infections. In this study, we analyzed publicly available data on EV-D68 infections, originally collected through the New Vaccine Surveillance Network, to predict their short- and long-term dynamics following the COVID-19 interventions. Although there are large uncertainties in our predictions, the likelihood of a large outbreak in 2023 appears to be low. Comprehensive surveillance data are needed to narrow uncertainties in future dynamics of EV-D68. The limited incidence of AFM cases in 2022, despite large EV-D68 outbreaks, poses further questions for the timing of the next AFM outbreaks.
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Park et al. (2023) studied this question.
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