By Angelina Tang
As winter fast approaches, we’re all undoubtedly awaiting flu season and yet another surge of Covid-19 cases. This year, however, doctors warn we have a third ailment to worry about: RSV.
RSV, or Respiratory Syncytial Virus, has been rearing its head with great prevalence since late August in some places around the United States. As its name suggests, it’s a respiratory infection that results in mild cold symptoms in adults and most children, but can cause pneumonia and bronchiolitis in infants and children under five. It’s actually always been around, only it usually only peaks in fall and winter and with far less severity. This year, however, RSV cases have soared, to the point where hospital beds are being filled to capacity by patients–mostly young children–with the virus. This means that the ER space that would have otherwise been utilized by Covid patients is being taken over, which may prove troublesome by the time the Covid spike in a month or two is projected to hit.
Why now? Well, as it turns out, this was a problem we created. Or rather, a problem the pandemic created. For the last year or two, we have all been masked and being overly vigilant in staying sanitary. As a result, our immune systems have grown weaker due to a lack of exposure to germs for so long. This is even more acutely true for young children who were born in the last few years; as such, infants and toddlers have been even more sensitive to the sudden onslaught of germs as Covid regulations lift and they are exposed to a variety of unfamiliar illnesses.
Generally, RSV is not something that we, as high schoolers with perfectly fine immune systems, should worry about. If you have very young siblings or live with older grandparents, then perhaps a touch of caution is recommended. For the rest of us, the only thing we can do to prepare for sick season is to get the new bivalent Covid vaccine booster.
