From New York Times, I'm Michael Borrow. This is a daily.

This winter, three major respiratory viruses, RSV, the flu and COVID, are colliding in the

US in what health officials are calling a triple-demick.

Today, a poor, but mandavili on what this collision has to do with our response to the

pandemic and why so far the worst impacts are on children.

It's Tuesday, November 22.

So I think just for starters, can you tell us your name, who you are, where you live?

Yeah. My name is Sarah Stucky. I live in Bowie, Maryland, so just outside of DC.

Daily producer Sydney Harper recently spoke with a woman whose infant daughter was infected

with RSV. Yes, her name is Caroline. She turned nine months old while in the hospital.

So Tuesday morning, she had a cough and took her to the pediatrician. The doctor looked

at her, said, like, yeah, she probably has RSV. It's really going around, but there's

nothing that we can do for it. And they sent us on our way. But Friday morning, she started

having trouble breathing. So we took her to the emergency room and we got there about

two o'clock in the afternoon. They were taking her oxygen levels. Her oxygen levels were

so low that they thought their pulse oxen meters were broken. But once they realized that's

what her oxygen level really was, they took her back right away. And it was like all hell

broke loose in this room. They intubated her. I mean, it was just like mass chaos to

get a ventilator in her and they had an oxygen bag. They were literally pumping oxygen

by hand into her. And then they started telling us that the hospital that we were at did

not have a ventilator that could support her needs. She needed a really nuanced ventilator

and they just didn't have it. So the doctor started calling hospitals to see where we

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