section_path: Impact/Health
section_name: Health
paragraph_text: Health
  
  The pandemic impacted global health for many conditions. Hospital visits fell. Visits for heart attack symptoms declined by 38% in the US and 40% in Spain. The head of cardiology at the University of Arizona said, "My worry is some of these people are dying at home because they're too scared to go to the hospital". People with strokes and appendicitis were less likely to seek treatment. Medical supply shortages impacted many people. The pandemic impacted mental health, increasing anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, affecting healthcare workers, patients and quarantined individuals.
  
  In late 2022, during the first northern hemisphere autumn and winter seasons following the widespread relaxation of global public health measures, North America and Europe experienced a surge in respiratory viruses and coinfections in both adults and children. This formed the beginning of the 2022–2023 paediatric care crisis and what some experts termed a " tripledemic " of seasonal influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and SARS-CoV-2 throughout North America. In the United Kingdom, paediatric infections also began to spike beyond pre-pandemic levels, albeit with different illnesses, such as Group A streptococcal infection and resultant scarlet fever. As of mid-December 2022, 19 children in the UK had died due to Strep A and the wave of infections had begun to spread into North America and Mainland Europe.
  
  The B/Yamagata lineage of influenza B might have become extinct in 2020/2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic measures. There have been no naturally occurring cases confirmed since March 2020. In 2023, the WHO concluded that protection against the Yamagata lineage was no longer necessary in the seasonal flu vaccine, reducing the number of lineages targeted by the vaccine from four to three.