The emergency room at Rady Children’s Hospital is overflowing with parents and their children, some of them waiting to get tested for respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
Sarah McGlone is among the parents waiting outside with her 5-year-old son draped in blankets.
"He’s had a cough and it’s not improving and a fever that went up to 103,” said McGlone. “I’m worried about RSV. I’m not thinking about COVID. It’s definitely going around and kids are catching it faster than I’ve ever seen."
Mc Glone is especially concerned after hearing California State Health Officials confirmed the first child in California under the age of 5 has died from the flu and RSV.
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"I've been doing infectious disease in children for 40 years now and I've never seen a respiratory season like this," Dr. John Bradley, Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Rady Children's Hospital, says he’s never seen a respiratory illness season like this.
He says the increase in RSV cases is partly because of a more aggressive virus and because COVID-19 protocols kept kids from being exposed.
“So every year, every kid gets RSV. There are kids that have never seen RSV for the past couple of years who were born at the beginning of the COVID pandemic," Dr. Bradley said.
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Though health officials aren't identifying the deceased child or where they're from, Dr. Bradley says it's important for parents to remember the unfortunate death was the result of a possibly preventable one-two punch of RSV and the flu.
“If your child is immunized with the flu vaccine, you won't get sick enough to come into the hospital, you'll be protected even if you have mild symptoms,” explained Dr. Bradley.
In the past two weeks, hospital officials say there've been about 156 children hospitalized at Rady for RSV.
And more than three times that number have tested positive, though they weren't sick enough to be hospitalized for a lung virus that doctors say is easily treated when it's the only ailment.
“You can take the sickest child with RSV who's having trouble breathing and you give them oxygen or a little bit of pressure to get the oxygen into the lungs and then they smile at you,” said Bradley.
That's good news for parents like McGlone who are hoping to get the help they need to protect their children from the potential "triple-demic” of COVID, flu and RSV.
“I’ve been very conscious of it, you know. I try to protect him and keep them in a bubble, but that’s impossible with kids," she said.
Rady Children’s Hospital says they have over 500 approved beds to help address the surge in viral cases. Hospital officials say they’re also “flexing” up their staff so they can keep up with an increase in patients.
