[News] A common respiratory virus is spreading at unusually high levels, overwhelming children’s hospitals. Here’s what parents need to know

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When Amber Sizemore and her family went out of state to celebrate her birthday last week, she had hoped her toddler daughter, Raegan, would try swimming. But the 15-month-old, normally energetic and adventurous, wasn’t herself on Saturday.

“She hated it, and she normally loves water,” Sizemore said.

By Sunday, when the family was heading back to Ohio, the little girl was “coughing like crazy.”

“She coughed so hard, she threw up,” Sizemore said. Raegan also stopped eating and developed a fever.

When Tylenol didn’t help, Sizemore took her to urgent care and told them that RSV or respiratory syncytial virus, a common cold-like virus, was going around at Raegan’s day care, where Sizemore also works.The test came back positive, and Raegan’s vital signs prompted the staffers at the urgent care to tell Sizemore to take her daughter to the hospital.

As soon as they saw her vitals, the staff at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland knew they had to admit Raegan, her mom said. She needed oxygen.

“They’ve been great here and taken good care of her, but the scariest part is, had I not already known she was exposed to RSV, I may have just let her cough it out,” Sizemore said. “I’m glad I didn’t wait.”

Most kids catch RSV at some point before they turn 2, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, and it’s usually mild. Symptoms may look like a common cold and include runny nose, decreased appetite, coughing, sneezing, fever and wheezing. They typically last a week or two, and clear up with rest and fluids.

But in some children, especially young infants, RSV can be dangerous, leading to dehydration, breathing trouble and more serious illnesses such as bronchiolitis or pneumonia.Now, there’s an “unprecedented” rise in RSV cases among children in the US, some doctors tell CNN.

The CDC does not track hospitalizations or deaths for RSV like it does for flu, but it said Thursday there has been a rise in RSV cases in many parts of the country. Several children’s hospitals told CNN that they’ve been “overwhelmed” with patients at a time of the year when it’s unusual to have a surge of RSV patients.

Overall, pediatric hospital beds are more full now than they’ve been in the past two years, according to federal data.

The US Department of Health and Human Services does not specify the reason for hospitalization, but about three-quarters of pediatric hospital beds available nationwide are being used now. By comparison, pediatric hospital beds were about two-thirds full on an average day over the past two years.‘Never seen this level of surge’
With the RSV surge, UH Rainbow Babies has had so many patients, it went on diversion for a couple of days in early October, meaning it couldn’t take external emergency admissions. It’s taking patients again now, but it’s still slammed with RSV cases.There has been such such a dramatic increase in cases in Connecticut that Connecticut Children’s Hospital has been coordinating with the governor and public health commissioner to determine whether it should bring the National Guard in to expand its capacity to care for these young patients.

“I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve been at Connecticut Children’s for 25 years, and I’ve never seen this level of surge specifically for RSV coming into our hospital,” Dr. Juan Salazar, the hospital’s executive vice president and physician in chief, told CNN.

In Texas, where RSV cases usually spike in December or January, the emergency department at Cook Children’s in Fort Worth and its urgent cares are seeing a significant number of RSV cases. Nearly half the ICU is filled with RSV cases, hospital spokesperson Kim Brown said; between October 2 and 8, there were 210 RSV cases at Cook Children’s; a week later, there were 288.

Jeff and Zoey Green’s 4-month-old, Lindy, was admitted to Cook on Sunday.

At the hospital, Lindy’s fever was so high at one point they said they used ice packs to cool her down.

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