Bay Area health officials said Wednesday that a substantial increase in flu activity and other
respiratory viruses
since the beginning of the month it has led to an increase in emergency department visits and is putting a strain on healthcare systems across the region.
“This is the first year that we have faced not only COVID, but also increased influenza activity and unusually high levels of RSV,” said Santa Clara County Deputy Health Director Dr. Sarah Rudman, during a press conference. “These are two other types of viruses that can also possibly cause the same respiratory symptoms as COVID, but can also cause severe respiratory illness, or even life-threatening illness.”
the
Santa Clara County
The health department said the percentage of emergency department visits for influenza-like illness is three times higher this year than it was during the 2019-2020 flu season, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, the agency has launched a
wastewater data dashboard
to monitor the concentration of influenza in the county, one of the first of its kind in the US.
The tool, which is widely used to monitor coronavirus levels, serves as an early warning system for hospitals and healthcare systems.
“Right now, the sewage is showing increasing levels of flu in every part of our county, in every sewer basin that we monitor,” Rudman said.
Children’s hospitals in the Bay Area are seeing an increase in cases of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, a common viral illness that can cause respiratory problems in infants and young children, and older adults. It’s part of a nationwide surge that has become particularly severe in some parts of the country.
Monday, California
health authorities reported the first death
from a child younger than 5 years who was infected with influenza and RSV. The state public health department did not disclose where the death occurred. and it is not clear which virus caused the death.
“We have seen a steep increase in all of our RSV cases,” said Dr. Vidya Mony, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, during Wednesday’s briefing. “If you look at a lot of the curves, it’s almost linear. This is significantly more than we have seen in several years.”
UCSF Children’s Benioff Hospitals are accounting for “very high volumes” of respiratory illnesses, including RSV, said chief medical officer Dr. Joan Zoltanski.
“As soon as a bed opens up right now, there’s someone waiting to take that bed,” he said. “In the ER we have a lot of patients, and the patients who are there without very urgent care are waiting much, much longer than normal.”
On Wednesday, Tamalpais Pediatrics, which has several clinics in Marin County, sent out a notice to its clients that said: “We are experiencing an unprecedented volume of calls, portal messages and visits.”
Dr. Nelson Branco, of Tamalpais Pediatrics, said his offices typically receive 200 to 300 calls and 100 to 120 visits on Mondays at this time of year. The practice received more than 500 calls Monday and is seeing between 170 and 180 patients daily this week, with those for same-day care mainly for respiratory illnesses, Branco said.
“A couple of weeks ago it was high. Now it is at a point that I have never seen in my more than 25 years of practice,” said Branco.
The volume hasn’t kept up with more serious cases of infections, Branco said, but “the few that we’ve needed to send to the hospital, we’ve had trouble finding a place for them.”
Branco noted that after an initial spike in RSV cases, the practice has seen more flu cases over the last week or two.
“Those who are the sickest in our office, of all ages, have tested positive for influenza,” he said.
“In the last two weeks, in both our inpatient and outpatient settings, we have seen a sharp increase in patients,” Mony said. “The predominant cause of these hospitalizations is secondary to respiratory viruses, specifically RSV.”
RSV cases dropped dramatically in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. But they
increased last summer
as COVID restrictions eased. While this year’s rebound got off to a slower start, positive tests recently surpassed numbers for this time last year,
based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mony added: “I have also seen an increase in COVID-19 infections in our pediatric patients in recent weeks.”
While flu and COVID-19 vaccines are widely available, there are no vaccines available to prevent RSV. Instead, health officials are urging Bay Area residents to follow measures that also slow the spread of COVID-19: frequent hand washing, wearing masks when indoors, and keeping sick people indoors. home as much as possible.
“While all of these viruses can sometimes cause milder illness in most older children or younger adults, they are all especially dangerous for our youngest children, older community members, and people with other medical problems. Rudman said. “Right now, we are already seeing these diseases affect our youngest children.”
Aidin Vaziri and Matt Kawahara are staff writers for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: avaziri@sfchronicle.com; mkawahara@sfchronicle.com