With the relaxation of COVID restrictions some common childhood viruses are making an unseasonal comeback, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is a viral infection typically experienced early in life, and for most, isn’t a problem. Now more children seem to be experiencing RSV out of season, sometimes along with COVID infection. Helen Hughes, a pediatrician at Johns Hopkins, describes the dynamics.

Hughes: I think what we’re seeing is that a lot of the winter respiratory viruses including RSV and parainfluenza that we would often see in the fall and winter we did not see because kids weren’t around each other. Now we’ve seen very quickly with everything opening up and no mask mandates, circulation of a lot of the winter respiratory viruses that we would typically see.  All of these viruses are cocirculating  because no one’s been around each other and now everyone is around each other at the same time, and so you’re probably seeing some of those co-occur.  :31

Hughes says that keeping children masked along with all of the other measures known to limit infection risk is prudent. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.