FORT WORTH, Texas —
As hospitals across the nation and in North Texas report an early surge in RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) cases, health officials warn that the U.S. could be up against a brutal winter of respiratory illnesses.
On Wednesday, Stephen Love, the president and CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council, told WFAA that area hospitals are already sounding the alarm.
“We don’t wanna panic people, but we do wanna put out information that we think is helpful,” Love said. “We see an uptick in emergency room visits for the flu and quite a few RSV visits for the children.”
On Wednesday, the emergency room at Cook Children’s in Fort Worth was at maximum capacity, and it has been that way since an early surge in RSV cases in August. A spokesperson for Cook Children's told WFAA the emergency room saw 500 patients in the last 24 hours.
Between Oct. 9 and Oct. 15, 288 cases of RSV were recorded at Cook Children’s Medical Center. All of Cook Children’s urgent care centers combined are seeing between 600-700+ children daily.
"We could have a pretty rough winter with the flu, with COVID and with RSV,” Love said. “That’s why you’re hearing about a ‘triple-demic.’ We’re not out of the woods. We’ve shown great improvement on COVID, we just hope we don’t get another variant.”
Love recommends frequent hand-washing, getting a flu shot and a booster dose of the COVID vaccine.
The early surge in illnesses has put some day care centers on high alert. Monicha Neal, the owner of Treasure Chest Learning Center in Fort Worth, told WFAA she has kept many of their COVID safety protocols in place.
“Last year, in October, we were so focused on COVID, and now we don’t know what it is... if it’s flu, RSV, we just don’t know, so we’re just taking it day by day,” Neal said.
Educators at her learning center are constantly looking out for cold and flu-like symptoms in infants and children, Neal said. Often times, they’re the first to detect illnesses in children and alert families.
The center’s executive director, Ashley Brooks, said stopping the spread of illnesses has become an added responsibility they take seriously. The center is cleaning daily and encouraging parents with sick children to keep them home.
Neal said that some of the children in her center have already been hospitalized with RSV this season.
“We have to be involved, because lives now are at stake,” Brooks said. “We have to make sure we’re doing our part in noticing the signs before they even get to the hospital, because it’s a community thing now. It takes a village.”
Neal said the center is prepared to close for a few days if infections become too widespread, but the hope is that won’t happen.