DENVER (KDVR) — The late 2022 spike in RSV is still going strong, but the number of hospitalizations has drastically decreased since a high in November.
Public health officials statewide and across the country have been urging caution about seasonal illnesses and COVID combining into a single cold weather threat. In Colorado, the hospitalizations associated with each, particularly RSV, have been dropping into the new year.
Last year saw one of Colorado’s largest spikes of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, activity since surveillance data started. In mid-December, the three had converged to strain the state’s hospital system.
RSV hospitalizations peaked on Nov. 6, 2022, with 48.11 hospitalizations per 100,000 people.
By Dec. 25, 2022, that had dropped to 6.6 hospitalizations per 100,000.
Both influenza and COVID-related hospitalizations have been rolling downward in roughly the same period of time, though nowhere near as dramatically as RSV. COVID-related hospitalizations peaked on Nov. 6 along with RSV, while influenza-related hospitalizations peaked on Christmas Day.
Children were the biggest drivers of the state’s RSV hospitalizations. Those numbers have been plummeting.
In the week ending Nov.12, there were just under 300 children admitted to hospitals in Colorado with RSV. In the week ending New Year’s Eve, there were 13.