Just when people thought it was cool to take off their masks, another airborne virus — respiratory syncytial virus — has entered the fray.
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022.Just when people thought it was cool to take off their masks, another airborne virus entered the fray.
While some are calling this moment a ‘tripledemic,’ RSV stands out when it comes to its symptoms, its prevention, and its treatment. RSV, for example, doesn’t have a vaccine, unlike COVID-19 and the flu. And while news headlines are mostly focusing on how RSV is harming youngsters, it’s actually more lethal in senior citizens.
Over the course of a lifetime, people get reinfected, but those bouts are usually just mild colds. RSV is one of a handful of germs typicallyThe RSV script flips back to causing severe disease when adults become elderly or when people develop immune system deficiencies, which also happens with aging.according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
3-D rendering of respiratory syncytial virus — a common contagious virus that infects the human respiratory tract.Annually among kids younger than 5, RSV leads to 57,000 hospitalizations alongside 1.5 million visits to outpatient doctors, according to CDC data. Of those, about 100 to 500 die.