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RSV Hospitalizations in Minnesota

By January 11, 2023Commentary

Unlike the flu season, which had a peak consistent with other heavy recent flu years, RSV was massively higher in Minnesota this year than in past years, with a peak multiples of past years.  This is a direct result, no question in my mind, of the Walz administration policies shutting schools and isolating children.  We limited their ability to develop strong immune responses and this is the result.  And it largely occurred in very young and vulnerable infants and toddlers.  Congratulations, Little Timmy, you sure do care about children.

Dave’s notes:

  1. This post is an update of first examination of RSV hospitalization data for Minnesota available from the CDC, published on 12/20/2022 here: https://healthy-skeptic.com/2022/12/20/rsv-infection-trends/. Today’s post adds data through the week ending 12/24/2022, last updated by the CDC on 12/29/2022.
  2. Data can be viewed on the CDC RSV-NET Interactive Dashboard (https://www.cdc.gov/rsv/research/rsv-net/dashboard.html) and downloaded from the dataset page (https://data.cdc.gov/Case-Surveillance/Weekly-Rates-of-Laboratory-Confirmed-RSV-Hospitali/29hc-w46k). Data is available starting from the week ending 9/30/2018 through the week ending 12/24/2022. It is important to note that only 58 counties in 12 states, including Minnesota, participate in the CDC’s RSV surveillance program. The exact coverage in Minnesota is unknown. Because this data is only taken from a small number of counties the actual RSV hospitalization rates may differ from those shown in these charts. Hopefully this data at least gives a reasonable representation of the overall trends in RSV hospitalization.
  3. Fig. 1, Minnesota Overall Population RSV Hospital Admissions Per 100k Per Week, 2018-2019 Through 2022-2023 Season: The current 2022-2023 RSV season is shown in bright red. The chart starts with MMWR Week 27 (end of June) and ends with MMWR Week 26 (third week in June). This centers the winter season on the chart, when the peak in RSV infections typically occurs. Recent RSV hospitalizations for the week ending 12/24/2022 have fallen below 1 hospitalization per 100k.
  4. Fig. 2, Minnesota RSV Hospital Admissions Per 100k Per Week, by Age Group, 2022-2023 Season: The great majority of RSV hospitalizations occur in the 0-4 age group, which peaked the week of 10/29/2022 and has declined since then.

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