Soaring RSV rates in parts of Quebec lead national cases, strain hospital staff

Soaring cases of respiratory syncytial virus in Quebec have pushed the positivity rate to 15 per cent in Montreal and Quebec City.

Soaring cases of respiratory syncytial virus in Quebec have pushed the positivity rate to 15 per cent in Montreal and Quebec City.

Weekly provincial surveillance data show positivity rates of the childhood illness hover near 14 per cent provincewide, with slightly higher rates in the two cities and wide variation among smaller communities.

It’s several times the most recent federal positivity rate of 3.5 per cent, although that data is a week behind and covers the week ending Oct. 15.

The head of the pediatric emergency department at Sainte-Justine hospital in Montreal says his emergency rooms “are completely jammed with patients” with respiratory viruses, largely driven by RSV.

Dr. Antonio D’Angelo says such numbers are not typically seen until later in the fall and winter, but that a similarly early RSV season last year has shifted viral patterns.

He says RSV seems to be hitting more than just babies and toddlers this year to include three- and four-year-olds who are getting the virus for the first time because they had been shielded by now-lifted pandemic precautions.

“There’s just so much more — a larger wave with sicker patients, therefore more hospitalizations and our hospitals are just full to the brim,” D’Angelo said Tuesday.

“In the emergency rooms, well, they’re just all over the place — they’re in our respiratory unit in the emergency room but they’re also in sort of a makeshift corridor for a temporary unit there. And then we had to open up another corridor with patients with respiratory cases that needed treatments.