{"id":900509,"date":"2026-10-31T01:02:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T01:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/900509\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T01:02:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T01:02:14","slug":"what-doctors-want-you-to-know-about-the-rise-in-rhinovirus-and-enterovirus-infections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/900509\/","title":{"rendered":"What Doctors Want You To Know About The Rise In Rhinovirus And Enterovirus Infections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sniffling and sneezing right now?<\/p>\n

While there is a lot of sickness going around this fall (COVID, flu<\/a> and more), rates of rhinovirus and enterovirus, which are cold-causing illnesses, have been elevated throughout the United States, according to Centers for Disease Control data<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not unusual for this time of year,\u201d said Dr. Aniruddha Hazra<\/a>, an infectious disease physician at UChicago Medicine. \u201cWe think of these as seasonal respiratory viruses that often start to increase or creep up around the fall, usually when kids are back at school and there\u2019s more indoor activities in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there is an increase of enterovirus and rhinovirus right now, \u201cI don\u2019t want people to be worried that these are causing spikes in hospitalizations or people getting super sick,\u201d Hazra said. \u201cWe typically see this occur at this time of year. So it\u2019s not something that\u2019s a major cause of alarm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, no one wants to come down with a cold or accidentally spread their sickness to a loved one. Here\u2019s what to know about the symptoms of these viruses and how to keep yourself from getting sick.<\/p>\n

These viruses cause typical cold symptoms like cough, runny nose and fever.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Rhinovirus and enterovirus] are part of a very large family of closely related viruses that can cause a variety of different syndromes,\u201d said Dr. Ryan Carroll<\/a>, an infectious diseases physician at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese two [viruses] are some of the most common viruses that we see circulate in the community, and they cause some of the most common syndromes that we see as well, which are going to be things like the common cold or gastrointestinal illnesses,\u201d Carroll said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe typically think of upper respiratory symptoms related to rhinovirus,\u201d Hazra said. This includes congestion, runny noses, coughs and fevers. \u201cEnterovirus is also a respiratory virus,\u201d which can cause coughs, runny noses, congestion and fevers, too, Hazra added.<\/p>\n

Beyond cough and congestion, enterovirus can also cause gastrointestinal illness or even lesions on the hands and feet. Specifically, the enterovirus family can cause nausea, vomiting or diarrhea, \u201cbut the symptoms are pretty variable,\u201d Carroll added.<\/p>\n

\"Viruses<\/p>\n

ozgurcankaya via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Viruses that cause common cold symptoms are elevated throughout the United States.<\/p>\n

To avoid getting sick, practice good hand hygiene, masking when necessary and vaccination. <\/p>\n

Washing your hands well (and frequently) can help keep you from getting illnesses like rhinovirus, enterovirus and other fall viruses such as the flu and COVID, Carroll said. It\u2019s also a good idea to wash your hands well around large groups of people, after using the bathroom, before eating and before touching your face, he noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may notice hospital systems may start to increase masking in healthcare settings … masking, depending on what your risk calculus is, is something that\u2019s important to recognize,\u201d Hazra said.<\/p>\n

Wearing a mask can keep you from catching a virus and protect others from catching yours.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then getting vaccinated for other respiratory viruses is helpful because sometimes, particularly kids can be co-infected with multiple respiratory viruses,\u201d Hazra said.<\/p>\n

Getting your routine vaccinations for viruses like COVID and flu can help protect you against co-infection or \u201cpotentially having a really bad case of multiple viruses at once,\u201d Hazra noted.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re one of the many people who come down with a cold this fall or winter (or any upper respiratory virus, for that matter), stay home when you\u2019re sick, he added.<\/p>\n

While these viruses cause common symptoms that can, generally, be treated at home, they do pose a significant risk for certain people, such as those with weakened immune systems or underlying lung disease, Carroll said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be very mindful to try to protect those particular community members as much as we can,\u201d he said before stressing the importance of hand-washing and staying away from other people when sick. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tough time of year for upper respiratory illnesses, but with the right precautions, you can lower your risk of getting sick and lower the chance that you\u2019ll spread your illness on to loved ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sniffling and sneezing right now? While there is a lot of sickness going around this fall (COVID, flu…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[83824,97,5599],"class_list":["post-900509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-cold-and-flu","tag-health","tag-public-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}