The Week (US)

A rethink on asthma

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When the coronaviru­s first appeared, many doctors worried that the pandemic would be

especially perilous for people with asthma. But that feared surge in asthma attacks never occurred—in fact, research from England, Scotland, and South Korea found big drops in hospital and doctor’s visits for the chronic condition. Now a new U.S. study of 1,201 asthma patients has found that the number of attacks suffered by the participan­ts fell 40 percent after lockdowns kicked in. “We know this isn’t reluctance to go to the emergency room,” co-author Elliot Israel, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, tells The Atlantic. “This is a true, real decrease.” Why this drop-off happened remains unclear. But it was larger among those who normally worked outside the home (65 percent) than those who already worked at home (23 percent). Doctors say this suggests that allergens at home, such as pets and secondhand smoke, may play a much smaller part in asthma than thought. That in turn could mean that triggers such as cold and flu viruses—which almost vanished during the pandemic because of masking, social distancing, and other measures— play a bigger part in the condition.

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