There Is Another Frightening Prospect Looming
Early versions of COVID-19 largely spared children but the delta variant proved to be much less discriminating, and has led to more child hospitalizations. Now, health care workers on the front lines say there is another frightening prospect looming: a surge in children diagnosed with a combination of COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus.
Pediatric hospitals in Texas — and around the country — are reporting unseasonably early outbreaks of RSV, a respiratory virus that mostly manifests as a mild illness with cold-like symptoms in adults but that can cause pneumonia and bronchiolitis in very young children. The CDC reports it can be life-threatening in infants and young adults.
At Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston on Thursday, 25 of 45 hospitalized pediatric patients were diagnosed with RSV as well as COVID-19. “A hospitalization rate much higher than for either virus alone,” according to officials.
RSV infections are surging months earlier than normal
RSV infections typically occur in the late fall, winter and early spring, the CDC explains.
“But last year, during all of the COVID-19 outbreaks and all of our social restriction measures, we did not see RSV the way we normally see it,” Dr. Pia Pannaraj, an infectious diseases specialist at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles told NPR.
That meant infants and young children who would have gotten it last year, didn’t. Now, as many states have lifted mask mandates and other restrictions, Pannaraj says, doctors are starting to see a resurgence of the virus.
In Texas, the spike began in the final week of June.
It’s not just a Texas thing
At this point some states have already reported cases as high as they would typically be in the winter. Other states have experienced short-lived spikes that go up and down.