RSV

Winter Viruses Make Summertime Appearance In Kids

After a season of very few reported common fall and winter illnesses, doctors now report an influx of these illnesses among children as summer begins

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This past winter, North Texas hospitals saw record low case numbers of illnesses, like flu and RSV, as people socially distanced and masked up.

Now, with those restrictions lifted, viral illnesses are making an unusual summertime comeback.

Cook Children's in Fort Worth reports 227 positive RSV tests since the week of April 4.

86 of those were last week.

According to Children's Health in Dallas, for this month of June, Children’s Health has seen 279 cases of RSV with 95 hospitalizations, in comparison to zero for this time last year.

"We are starting to see people get back out in the community, get back out together. We are starting to see the viruses start to circulating," said Cook Children's pediatrician Dr. Justin Smith, who wrote about the issue in this blog post.

These fall/winter season viruses, coupled with a rise in summertime viruses, like hand foot, and mouth disease, means a busy summer for doctor's offices and an important reminder of the presence of viral threats besides COVID-19.

"I think the biggest thing we can do right now to keep our kids safe and ourselves healthy is to focus on frequent hand washing, make sure that we keep our kids home when they're sick, so we can protect the other people in our daycares and in our camps and really focus on all the normal things that we would do in the wintertime to keep our kids healthy because we are really seeing that influx of wintertime viruses," said Smith.

To become aware of RSV symptoms, what to look out for, and how it affects infants, visit here.

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