RSV cases spiking at NYC hospitals: ‘Highest levels ever seen’

New York City emergency rooms are stressed to the max treating respiratory syncytial virus — an illness commonly called RSV that’s seen a surge in cases over the past two months, data shows.

“It’s at the highest levels any of us have ever seen,” Dr. James Schneider, head of the pediatric intensive care unit at Long Island Jewish Hospital in Queens, told The Post Wednesday.

“We’re caring for more kids than we have beds for.”

Data from the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene shows a rapid increase in RSV cases in recent months, with a nearly 10-fold increase in known cases since mid-September.

Last week alone, there were more than 4,500 positive cases in the city, according to the department’s most recent data.

The virus, which typically causes mild, cold-like symptoms in older children and healthy adults, is fairly common and highly transmissible. While many cases of RSV can be treated at home — and nearly every child in the US catches the virus by the time they’re 2 years old — it can quickly become severe for the very old and the very young.

Historically, some 80,000 children under the age of 5 are hospitalized with RSV each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This year, however, the disease is spreading more quickly, Schneider said.

“Every winter, most pediatric emergency departments are full of infants with RSV,” said the doctor, who’s worked in the field for 18 years. “This isn’t an emerging new virus that’s throwing us a curveball.”

What is new, however, is the sheer number of infections. Schneider told The Post his 37-bed pediatric ICU is already over capacity, with more than half of his patients sick with RSV.

Schneider pointed to the COVID-19 pandemic being a contributing factor in the uptick in RSV infections.

“Over the past couple of years, we instituted restrictions on our behavior [due to the pandemic] — masking, social distancing, school closures,” he said.

As a result, Schnieder said, “There was very little transmission of these easily transmissible respiratory viruses.”

“There’s not as much immunity in the community,” he added, and diseases were now spreading among children “now that they are unmasked and back at school.”