The coronavirus pandemic of recent years is in the past, but some folks worry that a surge in another virus in China could mean déjà vu all over again. National Review’s Jim Geraghty says that’s not where we are.

I can’t begrudge anyone for hearing news about hospitals filling up in China last month and thinking, “Oh no, here we go again.” Back in late November, news organizations reported that hospitals in Beijing and northern China were “grappling with a surge of children with respiratory illnesses” and that “wait times to see doctors stretch for hours, with hundreds of patients queuing at some children’s hospitals in major cities across northern China.”

On December 1, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, along with four other Republican senators, wrote to President Biden, declaring, “In light of an unknown respiratory illness spreading throughout the People’s Republic of China, we call on you to immediately restrict travel between the United States and the PRC. As you know, the Chinese Communist Party has a long history of lying about public health crises.”

That all sounds ominous and familiar to those of us who can remember back to early 2020. Readers and colleagues asked me* if this was Covid, the sequel. I held off on writing about this, wanting to know more, and knowing that time would give a clearer sense of what was spreading around those ill residents of northern China.

So far, this does not look like Covid, the sequel.

For starters, these illnesses appear to be caused by known viruses and bugs, not something new or unfamiliar to medical personnel.

In other words, this isn’t a novel virus of unknown origin. Geraghty certainly understands distrust of the medical establishment, though he points to Taiwanese officials — who are “not inclined to trust the word of Chinese health authorities” — as a helpful clue. Instead, he says:

What we are seeing in Beijing and northern China is probably a consequence of the Chinese government keeping its citizens in lockdowns for long stretches of the past three years — the ridiculously strict “zero Covid” policies that kept some cities locked down for more than 100 days.

People’s immune systems haven’t encountered as many viruses and bacteria as they normally would have, and their immune systems are “out of practice” in fighting them off, resulting in more severe and longer illnesses. And that’s particularly true for children’s immune systems, as their young bodies have even less “practice” fighting off pathogens than adults. Keep kids indoors and away from their peers for a couple of winters, and the next cold and flu season is going to hit them like a wrecking ball.

Everyone is not out of the woods, he acknowledges, and people still do get very sick. But there’s hope:

We can get through this winter with the usual common sense: Stay home if you’re sick, wash your hands, and drink plenty of fluids. If you think your child may have pneumonia, take your child to the doctor. If you think you may have pneumonia, go see a doctor.

Read the whole thing here.