If, over these last four years, you've found yourself getting sick more often ... you've got a lot of sniffling, coughing company.

An analysis by Bloomberg News found surging rates of viral and bacterial infections since the COVID lockdowns were initiated in 2020.  These are illnesses both common and rare ... ranging from higher rates of influenza to whooping cough, dengue fever and the common cold.

So what's causing all of this ... and what's the relationship to the COVID pandemic?

KNX chief correspondent Charles Feldman put those questions and more to Dr. Joshua Michaud, associate director for global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Many countries that managed to keep their COVID infection and death rates relatively low during the pandemic ... like Canada, Germany, Japan and Singapore ... are now experiencing levels of excess mortality from all of these viral infections.

Meanwhile countries that fared pretty poorly during COVID ... like Russia, Romania and Bulgaria ... are back to what's considered normal levels of viral infections.