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Serious Off-Season Virus Surge Strikes Infants and Small Children
It’s not Covid, but hospitals across the country are overloaded with dangerous infections
An outsized, out-of-season surge in respiratory virus in several states has hospitals filling up with babies and small children across the country, well ahead of when such infections normally peak during winter.
How many different viruses might be behind the surge is not yet known, but the main culprit appears to be a common one called respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which can be particularly dangerous for infants, children with underlying health conditions, and older people.
Like other viruses, RSV cases tend to rise in the fall, peak in the dead of winter, and tail off by spring. But this fall has started off with a disturbing bang, both in quantity and seriousness of infections.
“We are treating a very high number of severely ill children,” Sarah Combs, an emergency medicine physician at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, told The Washington Post.
“RSV, is a common respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms,” according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Most people recover in a week or two, but RSV can be serious, especially…
