Today’s (10/25/22) Projo features medical reporter savant G. Wayne Miller quoting Lifespan spokeswoman Kelly Brennan, that as of Monday (10/24/22) “there are [were] 20 pediatric patients in Hasbro Children’s Hospital with RSV, and half of the pediatric patients in the ICU have RSV (respiratory syncytial virus)”.
This current census for RSV is already 5X larger than the peak census of 4 with covid-19 last year, September 2021, during the hysterically trumpeted “delta wave.” Another sobering reminder—the > ~5-fold increased risk of annualized pediatric Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) deaths, vs. covid-19 deaths, in U.S. children up to 4 years old—is tabulated below. And yet all we get is non-sequitur, platitudinous nonsense from Rhode Island Medical Society President and pediatrician Dr. Elizabeth Lange, “It is a good reminder that everyone should get their COVID booster vaccines and flu vaccines.”
NEITHER situation—last fall’s very minor “uptick” in covid-19 “test positive hospitalizations”—at least ~half of which were likely not primary covid-19 hospitalizations—nor the current much higher rate of RSV hospitalizations should be shrilly exploited by the media, or so-called health officials. Instead, both circumstances should be prioritized, RSV >> than covid-19, accepted for what they are, i.e., part of the natural cycle of pediatric respiratory infections, and treated calmly, and with caring.
PDF of image: PDF_Peds Delta Wave in RI 2021
