Colorado and the "Tripledemic;" Health experts calling for masks as respiratory infections rise
Larry Gill is glad to have his daughter home. "She was hard to keep sitting up. She was wanting to lay down. She was whimpering." Five-year-old Feyona came down with RSV. Her complexion was gray and her fever up. She was having breathing trouble. She was a very sick little girl last week.
"I had asthma as a kid, and so I noticed, like to not breathe, but to see her where she literally wasn't able to breathe," Gill said. "They had to put her on six liters of oxygen when she left the doctor's appointment in the ambulance."
That ambulance took her to Sky Ridge Medical Center. It had taken the doctor several phone calls to figure out what hospital could take her. Children's Hospital Colorado at the time had a 24-hour wait, but she could not.
"It's one thing to hear and see things, you know, on the news, on TV, on the radio. But for it to hit home," Gill said. "I know everybody says that, 'I never thought it'd be here,' but to actually see your kid, close to death is not anything I wish on anybody."
There has been a sharp rise in RSV cases in Colorado. Wednesday evening, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment put out a statement asking for a return to more respiratory control protection for childcare settings. That includes a suggestion that everyone in childcare settings consider masks for everyone over two years of age. Feyona's case was among those involving children that are older.
Typically 95% of serious RSV cases are in children under five. But this season, it is also hitting some who are older. The virus can even hit adults, but cases requiring hospitalization for adults are very rare. But hospitals are filling up with RSV cases. Add that to flu cases as the flu kicks in. And COVID cases have been on the rise again in recent weeks in Colorado. Colorado moved to the CDC's "medium community transmission level" last week as cases rose. All three together are threatening the health care system's ability to handle it and has led to the coining of a new phrase — "Tripledemic."
"It's kind of a silly word, but I think it's one of the best ways that we can describe a lot of what we're seeing with respiratory diseases in Colorado and much of the country right now," said Tori Burket, manager of Denver Public Health and Environment's Epidemiology and Disease Intervention Program.
Health experts are theorizing that the uptick in RSV may be due to the pandemic, during which there was little spread, and thus little immunity gained. "We had a lot of measures that went into place to protect people against COVID, so that distancing, masking, hand washing, all of those things, so we have young kids that have not been exposed to RSV over the last three years," Burket said.
RSV is still hitting hardest in children under 6 months old. That is also the group which is not considered eligible for the COVID or flu vaccines. "Kids under the age of six months old aren't approved for a flu or COVID vaccine. But kids over the age of six months old are. So we're really trying to push vaccination as a way to help reduce overall respiratory disease, and also potentially reduce the risk of co-infections," Burket said. "Because what we don't want are kids who are battling blue and COVID or RSV. And flu at the same time."
Feyona is improving and hoping to get back to kindergarten. "She is mostly better right now. She still has some breathing issues. The stairs are kind of hard on her," Larry Gill said. But he is very thankful for the treatment at Sky Ridge Medical Center that got her through. "Personality wise, she's a toughie. She really hung in there," her father said.