There's a spike in respiratory illness among children — and it's not just COVID

The United States is seeing a significant spike in respiratory illness among children.

Sick kids are crowding emergency rooms in various parts of the country, and some pediatric hospitals say they are running out of beds. But this uptick in illness has largely been due to viruses other than the coronavirus, like RSV, enteroviruses and rhinovirus.

While respiratory infections typically surge in the winter months, experts say that this year the season has started much sooner, and that numbers are unusually high.

"Rates are as high as 25% of those...