2022–2023 pediatric care crisis

In the waning months of 2022, the first northern hemisphere autumn with the nearly full relaxation of public health precautions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals in the United States and Canada began to see overwhelming numbers of pediatric care patients, primarily driven by a massive upswing in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases, but also flu, rhinovirus, enterovirus, and SARS-CoV-2.

With high levels of hand-washing, mask-wearing, and social isolation during the early years of the pandemic, children born during this period had particularly low levels of exposure to RSV, with public health professionals reporting extremely low levels of RSV transmission in 2020 and 2021. In contrast, 2022 evidenced a dramatic reversal.

Starting in September 2022, many emergency departments and intensive-care units in the United States have been either at-capacity or over-capacity, with a variety of hospitals resorting to extreme measures which have included the use of a makeshift tent outside Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Maryland and the proposed deployment of the National Guard in Connecticut.

Outside of North America, in the United Kingdom, pediatric infections also began to spike beyond pre-pandemic levels, albeit with different illnesses, such as Group A streptococcal infection and resultant scarlet fever. As of mid-December in 2022, 19 children in the UK had died due to Strep A and the wave of infections had begun to spread into North America and Mainland Europe.

In late 2023, a similar pattern of pediatric illness appeared to emerge with Mycoplasma pneumoniae in China during the first full autumn and winter season following relaxation of its stringent Zero-COVID policies. Increased rates of pediatric Mycoplasma pneumonia were simultaneously observed in other parts of the world, with Denmark declaring that infections had reached epidemic levels.