About 1 in every 11 cases has been hospitalized, according to data reported to CDC. No deaths have been reported.

“Those most at risk are young children, elderly individuals and immunosuppressed people,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

“In most other healthy people, disease is often mild,” he said. “While it makes sense to take precautions, particularly for people at higher risk, there’s no reason for panic at this stage.” Read Full Article…

The new study is “very informative,” but the findings would need to be confirmed in real-life people with rhinovirus infections to better understand differences in interferon responses, said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who was not involved in the research.​

“People might have different levels of the interferon response, and those people who have a higher initial interferon response might only get the sniffles and recover very quickly, whereas people who do not have a robust interferon response would have a much more extensive infection,” Barouch said. “But it’s not entirely clear how someone can improve their own interferon response.” Read Full Article…

The flu has so far caused 66 deaths, including four in children. Last year at this time, there were 33 deaths. “We haven’t seen many pediatric deaths in Massachusetts, thank goodness, for a while, but we are seeing them this year,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “Overall, it’s shaping up to be a particularly bad flu season.”

Although the country is well into flu season, health experts continue to strongly recommend vaccinations. Barouch cited data from the United Kingdom suggesting the current flu vaccine is 70 to 80 percent effective at preventing pediatric hospitalizations and 30 to 40 percent effective at preventing adult hospitalizations. Read Full Article…

“It’s possible they’re both correct,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, an author of the study and director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

But what excites Barouch about the chronic inflammation hypothesis is that several anti-inflammatory drugs already exist. Based on the study’s data, Barouch said Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has started a clinical trial with one such drug — abrocitinib, which is used to treat eczema. Read Full Article…