Nothing says ‘October’ like a pumpkin patch. And, if you work in healthcare, nothing says ‘October” more than a stream of patients with respiratory complaints. In recent years, this is the month when flu, RSV, pneumonia and Covid begin ramping up — with most of these illnesses peaking in the early weeks of winter.
This year, you can add another respiratory illness to the list: Pertussis, commonly known as ‘whooping cough.’ The disorder is so named because of the sound patients make as they gasp for oxygen between coughs.
During the pandemic, cases of pertussis remained low, as masking and other measures helped stop the spread of all kinds of infectious diseases. Between 2020 and 2023, the state Department of Public Health reported 66 cases of whooping cough. In the first seven months of this year, the number is 252 cases.
Nationally, the CDC reports about 18,000 cases. The numbers haven’t been that high since 2019, before the pandemic.
But 18,000 is nothing compared with pertussis incidence decades ago. In the 1930s and 1940s, the number of annual whooping cough cases commonly topped 100,000 — sometimes even 200,000.