Respiratory viruses are hitting young children and infants particularly hard this fall and winter season, and experts don’t yet know exactly why.
Every fall and winter, viral respiratory illnesses like the common cold and seasonal flu keep kids out of school and social activities. But this year, more children than usual are ending up at emergency departments and hospitals.
We are epidemiologists with expertise in epidemic analysis for emerging disease threats, including respiratory infections. We watch patterns in these infections closely, and we pay particular attention when the patterns are unusual. We’ve grown increasingly concerned about the amount of pediatric hospitalizations over the last few months and the pattern that is emerging.
When it comes to COVID-19, 2022 is expected to usher in another winter wave of infections, similar to patterns seen in 2020 and 2021. Previous winter surges stemmed from a combination of factors, including the emergence and spread of new viral variants, more people gathering indoors rather than distanced outside, and people coming together for the holidays.
In typical years, RSV garners little media attention. It’s incredibly common and usually causes only mild illness. In fact, most children encounter the virus before age 2. These viruses present challenges on their own, but their co-circulation and coinciding surges in infections create a perfect storm for multiple viruses to infect the same person at once. Viruses might even act together to evade immunity and cause damage to the respiratory tract.
The early surge of respiratory infections underscores the need to get children up to date on flu and COVID-19 vaccinations. Geber86/E+ via Getty Images In particular, most recent data on the newly updated bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine suggests that it produces a more rigorous antibody response against the current circulating omicron variants than the original COVID-19 vaccines.
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