Children getting more colds
Other respiratory illnesses also rising
Meaghan Falko thought it was odd when her 2-yearold son Bo caught respiratory syncytial virus a few weeks ago from his day care.
Bo had contracted RSV when he was about 6 months old, she said, but it was during the winter. But a few weeks ago Bo developed a runny nose and wet coughs, characteristic of RSV. Then his little sister Lucy also got sick at just 5 weeks old.
“I know how RSV can be milder in some cases, but it can get really severe really fast,” Falko said. “So to be dealing with that with my daughter, especially because she’s just so little, was scary.”
Falko, of Moore Township, is one of many parents whose children caught a non-COVID-19 respiratory illness this summer. Maggie Barton, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, said that in June Pennsylvania and other parts of the country saw an increase
in RSV, which was later in the year than normal.
Lucy developed an awful wet cough that sounded like she was choking. Falko eventually had to take her to the emergency room. It was there that her baby girl had to have mucus sucked out of her body with a catheter. Bo also developed an ear infection.
“They started feeling better after a couple of days, but it was hard,” Falko said. “It kind of just went through the whole house and made us a little nervous, especially since the pandemic is still going on.”
For most of the pandemic, Falko kept her children home and Bo wasn’t around many other kids, except for a cousin, she said. She didn’t transition her son back to day care full time until spring. Her family still doesn’t go out much or visit crowded places.
Lehigh Valley Health Network and St. Luke’s University Health Network both have seen more cases of common cold, RSV, bronchiolitis, croup and other non-COVID-19 respiratory infections among children this summer than usual.
“We do see some summer colds, but in the summer we typically see a lot of trauma in the ER because kids are out going crazy and having fun,” said Dr. Andrew Miller, division chief of pediatric emergency medicine at Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital.
“But now it really feels like typical respiratory season.”
Miller said there is a correlation between the increase in these cases and the fact that for the last 18 months masking and social distancing have protected many children from getting sick. Because children haven’t come in contact with many others, they lack the natural immunity they would usually build up against certain illnesses. When society started to reopen, children started to get sick more.
“I think you can make the guesses that it’s because of the unmasking and social atmosphere,” Miller said.
Sam Kennedy, a spokesperson for St. Luke’s, also said the health network started to see an increase in these types of cases in late spring, when mask use began to decline.
In many cases, health officials are seeing kids with multiple infections at once, Miller said. He and his nurses have seen so many children with both croup and bronchiolitis that they have begun to call them “croupilitis” cases, he said.
In previous summers, it was rare to treat more than two or three children in a single shift with croup or bronchiolitis, Miller added, but while working a shift a couple of weeks ago he saw 10 patients with “croupilitis.”
Bronchiolitis and croup generally only affect children younger than 2 years old, but doctors have seen more children 2-8 years old with those illnesses this summer.
It’s a bit more complicated to treat these conditions in the summer, Miller said.
“Usually during my parent education, I’ll say take the kid into the bathroom and put the steam on in the shower, and if that doesn’t help with the barky cough from croup, take them outside because it’s cold outside and the cold weather helps,” Miller said. “But now it’s the summer and there’s no cold weather so they are not exposed to that. Now I have to train them to open up the freezer to help with the breathing.”
Miller said the current trend is unusual but not concerning. Cases are higher than normal for the summer but not alarming. Cases tend to be more severe in younger children, especially those under 6 months old, but more often than not children don’t require a hospital stay.
Long-lasting aftereffects don’t occur with these types of respiratory infections, unlike with COVID-19, he added.
Parents can reduce the chances of their children getting a respiratory infection by making sure they wash their hands, get enough sleep and stay away from sick children, Miller said.