Respiratory syncytia virus, or RSV, is a common winter respiratory virus that usually causes mild, cold-like symptoms. While most recover in a week or two, but RSV can be serious for infants and older adults and can lead to bronchiolitis in young children.

Dr. Michael Bigham, Chief Quality Officer and Pediatric Intensive Care Physician for Akron Children's Hospital, says that while everyone is at risk of exposure to the virus, but generally, it is children under two years old that are at the greatest risk from the virus.

"Every winter season we see peaks in RSV illness, what I think is different about this year is that we are seeing a tremendously high volume of children with RSV and we are seeing it earlier than we typically do," Dr. Bigham said. "We might see a peak of RSV around late December into early January, we are obviously seeing it much earlier," Bigham added.

Dr. Bigham feels that this RSV season has been one of the worst he has seen, and shared that nearly 100 children had been admitted into the hospital with the condition in the last week, and while most kids with RSV don't need to go the hospital, leading the doctor concern that thousands of children in the area are potentially ill with the virus or will become sick.

The doctor said that nearly half of all children that are undergoing testing for virus infections are positive for RSV, making it the top illness among children, however, reported the flu cases are doubling nearly every week in the region, making for the perfect illness storm the is concerning to the facility.

"RSV is in our community, there is nothing we can do to prevent it, just use good hand hygiene... but influenza is vaccine-preventable," Dr. Bigham said.

With COVID, influenza, and RVS all sending children to the emergency room, the doctor feels that common sense measures will help parents and the children, which includes effective hand washing and keeping kids that aren't feeling well away from groups of other children.

Dr. Bigham said that all area Akron Children's locations are currently offering flu vaccines for kids, and it takes a couple of weeks for the vaccine to be effective, and suggests parents consider vaccinating sooner rather than later.

"Our emergency departments, our urgent cares, our primary care offices, and our hospitals - even our ICU - is absolutely filled with kids with RSV bronchiolitis, they are making up a huge number of our in-patients right now,' Dr. Bigham said.

"And so there is absolutely pressure on the system right now to have enough capacity for the kids..." Bigham added.