Eric J. Chow, MD, MS, MPH, FACP, FAAP, FIDSA

How I Lost My Daughter to Measles Measles has a terrible side effect most people don’t know about.

Years after the current measles outbreak, a child who had the virus may develop a condition called SSPE. This is what that's like. www.voicesforvaccines.org/how-i-lost-m...

CDC cuts expected to devastate Epidemic Intelligence Service, a ‘crown jewel’ of public health Members of the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service were warned Friday that many of them were about to be fired

Doing the unthinkable: The deep cuts to the #CDC's workforce today are expected to decimate the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a program that has trained public health rapid responders for decades.
Envy of the world. Poof!
www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/t...

CDC removal of databases on sexual orientation, gender identity sparks alarm Data from an expansive federal survey on youth behavioral habits, including their sexual orientation and gender identity, have been removed from the website of the CDC.

additional changes highlighted here: www.statnews.com/2025/01/31/c...

Ending the HIV Epidemic in the US (EHE) EHE is an initiative to increases the nation's investment in proven HIV prevention strategies.

Historical page here: web.archive.org/web/20250129...

Analysis shows significant financial burden of long COVID in US Approximately 93% to 95% of these costs come from productivity losses.

“Managing long-COVID cases could cost US employers $1.99 billion to $6.49 billion annually…”

www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/ana...

Study: RSV in preschoolers comes with significant healthcare use, parents' work absence

RSV illness lasted a mean of 11.7 days.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/r...

RSV Changed Our Lives Nobody wants their kids to be sick. To have a child almost die from a virus, though? That’s a whole different level of powerlessness.

"When I saw the news that the vaccine is getting closer, I almost cried."

A mother hopes no other family faces what hers has. www.voicesforvaccines.org/how-rsv-chan...

Rather than normalizing the morbidity/mortality associated with these infections, we should work towards normalizing our mitigations strategies or layered approaches (vax, mask, ventilate, test, treat, isolate when ill).

Hospital-Acquired Respiratory Viral Infections: Incidence, Morbidity, and Mortality in Pediatric and Adult Patients AbstractBackground. Hospital-acquired respiratory viral infections can result in morbidity and mortality of hospitalized patients. This study was undertake

Even before the pandemic, nosocomial respiratory viral infections were associated with morbidity and mortality in patients. Now with COVID-19 in the mix, carrying over pandemic era lessons learned is that much more important. academic.oup.com/ofid/article...

Masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: a state of the science review | Clinical Microbiology Reviews SUMMARY This narrative review and meta-analysis summarizes a broad evidence base on the benefits—and also the practicalities, disbenefits, harms and personal, sociocultural and environmental impacts—o...

And this State of the Science review on masks and respirators for prevention of respiratory infections: journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Consistent FFP2-masking as part of reducing viral respiratory infections on medical wards for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Consistent FFP2-masking as part of reducing viral respiratory infections on medical wards for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

And this one: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Masks work in reducing respiratory illnesses including in our objective to reduce nosocomial respiratory viral infections. Here are a few notable publications detailing this: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

COVID-19 epidemiology continues to evolve in ways that are unpredictable and a continuous evaluation of different metrics that could be used is necessary. Data sources should be timely, provide guidance ahead of increased infections and ought to be simple to message to interest holders.

To calculate our alert thresholds, we use the established moving epidemic method approach which had previously been used to determine the arrival of the seasonal epidemics of influenza. Our methods are described here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Three line graphs are displayed showing the trends of ED visits with a COVID-19, flu or RSV diagnosis. Flu and RSV are above their calculated alert thresholds while COVID-19 diagnoses are at lower levels than where we were in the summer months.

As of data updated this week (December 26, 2024), both flu and RSV are above their transmission alert thresholds while COVID-19 diagnoses are still occurring but at far lower levels than we have seen since the earlier days of the pandemic.

In the WA regional masking approach, universal masking implementation is guided by community respiratory viral burden metrics. A primary metric that we are using is ED syndromic surveillance for the big 3: #COVID19, #RSV, and #Influenza. kingcounty.gov/en/dept/dph/...

Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic: Updating Our Approach to Masking in Health Care Facilities | Annals of Internal Medicine

We previously outlined our stance on masking as we transitioned from the emergency phase of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the importance of integrating regular mask wearing into our healthcare practices: www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/...

Masking has been one of the most important pandemic era lessons learned and has an ongoing important role in mitigating the spread of respiratory illnesses including COVID-19, flu and RSV. Prevention of infections in healthcare is critical given the impacts on staff and patients.

Our regional partners once again are taking action against respiratory illnesses in healthcare facilities. A new 2024-2025 healthcare masking approach statement has been published by our regional partners here in Washington State. #covid19 #flu #RSV #masking

nwhrn.org/wp-content/u...

I have broad interests across public health and communicable disease epidemiology. I got my start in #influenza, #COVID-19 and #immunizations so respiratory viruses and their clinical manifestations are of particular interest to me.

Look forward to learning from all of you and sharing knowledge.

Hi Folks ~

This is my personal account. Excited to join the community!

A little about myself:

Medical epidemiologist working in local #publichealth. Trained in medicine, pediatrics ( #medpeds ) and ID. EIS class of 2018.

I'm also a UW faculty member in the Depts of Medicine and Epidemiology