Healthwatch: UVM pediatrician says flu cases on the rise
There are plenty of viruses circulating through local schools and daycares right now, causing kids to spend more time at home. In addition to COVID, hospitals must also contend with Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and now, the flu.
When it comes to RSV. UVM Children’s Hospital’s Dr. Becca Bell says the number of positive tests and the number of kids going to the hospital is starting to go down. “However, I will say we are still very busy regardless. There’s still a lot of RSV in the community, however, it does appear we’ve peaked,” she said. Dr. Bell says that pre-pandemic, RSV had a 12-week busy cycle that usually ran from January to March. Now, it appears we just went through that in October, November, and December. “We will probably still see RSV in the winter, but I don’t think we’re going to see it at the levels that we saw this fall. I think that we had our season early.”