HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — “This year, from August 2023 until now, we’ve had our first normal germ cycle since before 2020,” said Dr. Lisa Cronin, general pediatrician at Children’s Medical Center.
This means we’re pretty much back to seeing more of the seasonally traditional illnesses you’d expect this time of year. One of the most common ones is a stomach virus.
“Kids are going to have some low-grade fevers, some vomiting, maybe diarrhea. They’re not going to feel at their best,” said Dr. Rosa Taveras-Delgado, a pediatrician for AdventHealth.
“Those things can typically be picked up at summer camps or around bodies of water, things like that, and they’re really contagious,” said Cronin.
Another common thing to see this time of year is different respiratory illnesses. Although, recently, there’s been an unusual pattern.
“We have had quite a few kids that have presented with either bronchitis and walking pneumonia. Which isn’t terribly typical this time of year. It did seem to be circulating at the end of this school year, and we are seeing transmission in the summer camp settings as well," said Cronin.
Patients are also coming in with rashes, Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease, and insect bites.
“Those can cause infections later on. If the kids are scratching, they can get bacteria in the insect bites and make it worse,” said Taveras-Delgado.
All of these things will usually be pretty mild.
“My rule of thumb is sort of the first three days you may have a little of a worsening of symptoms. Then it’s pretty typical to kind of have a plateau of symptoms for three to four days. Then typically by day seven or eight, you should be entering that getting better phase," said Cronin.
However, if you or your child has trouble breathing, is wheezing, showing signs of dehydration, has severe stomach pain, or has a fever that lasts more than five days—it’s time to see a doctor.
“Fevers typically don’t last more than five days, and if they do, there are other more serious things that we would need to rule out,” said Cronin.
As you spend time outside this summer, experts want to remind you to wear sunscreen and reapply it.
“It has to be SPF 30 or more, and it has to be reapplied every two to three hours," said Taveras-Delgado.
Don’t forget to drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration and sun poisoning.
“I would say that the rule of thumb is if you’re going to be outside playing for more than an hour, then you have to rehydrate yourself with some electrolyte solution,” said Taveras-Delgado.
Overall, doctors believe it’s likely kids will get sick this summer as their immune systems rebuild.
“We’ve seen the return of a lot of germs that we haven’t seen in three or four years. So we’ve seen a lot of kids—all the way from little kids through high school who have actually had a higher than usual number of illnesses this year,” said Cronin.
Hand washing remains one of the biggest ways to prevent illness. Experts recommend sending kids to summer camp with hand sanitizer.
