MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin is seeing a spike in childhood cases of respiratory syncytial virus earlier than usual this year.
RSV is a typically mild to moderate respiratory illness but can be deadly. Symptoms include runny nose, cough and fever. Dr. Dan Beardmore, a pediatrician at SSM Health, said parents should watch for signs of respiratory distress and difficulty breathing if their kids are sick.
“Just because your child has a cold doesn’t mean you need to immediately worry, but look out for the things like difficulty breathing, like respiratory distress, when the ribs are really flailing and you’re working really hard and your belly is sucking in. When kids look like they’re working that hard to breathe,” Beardmore said.
The virus typically peaks around the third or fourth day and usually resolves itself in about a week.
“If your child has a mild cold, be vigilant and continue to watch and pay attention and if you’ve gotten to day 4 and 5 of that cold without getting super, super bad, you’re probably in the clear.”
Beardmore said cases of the virus are usually highest during the winter months, but healthcare providers are seeing an increasing number of cases in the past month.
“Our children’s hospitals have been full with patients that have RSV for a while now and our ERs have been reporting positive cases for a while now,” he said. “Usually the state tells us when to start swabbing and testing for it, and they told us that information usually a month ago.”
This earlier spike is likely due to the pandemic and kids being back in school, he said.
“Schools resumed last year and masks were removed last year and it slowly started increasing. So it was already circulating a little bit, oddly, during the summer months, and then now when school got back in, it spiked,” he said.
The virus is spread through respiratory droplets and masking and disinfecting can help slow the spread.
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