Health officials know that after the holidays with family gatherings, and travel theres always a spike in respiratory illnesses in January. But this year is more active than usual.This year has been pretty intense, said Dr. Rosa Taveras-Delgado, a pediatrician with AdventHealth.Shes had a busy few weeks seeing an influx of patients with the flu, mostly strain A.Definitely the influenza this year has been kicking pretty hard, said Taveras-Delgado.There have been more flu cases this year in both kids and adults.We are seeing more cases than we did last year, said Dr. Michael Teng, virologist and USF Health associate professor. If you look at Florida I think were sort of at the peak for flu right now but its been increasing nationally."With the flu, symptoms include headache, congestion, fever, and body aches that come on quickly.Its kind of an overnight thing its all of a sudden like you were fine yesterday and today you woke up feeling really bad, said Taveras-Delgado.Shes seen an unusual symptom in kids associated with the flu this season.Ive been seeing a lot of patients, for example, in kids for croup associated with influenza. Which is not like the usual case for people, for a pediatric case, said Taveras-Delgado.If you havent gotten a flu shot yet, experts said its not too late.If you havent had the flu already, a flu shot is a great idea still, said Teng.RSV is on the rise too, and health officials predict well start seeing more COVID-19 cases soon.Its going to be kind of like back to back to back peaks of flu, RSV, and COVID, said Teng.Dr. Taveras-Delgado has already been seeing kids come in with RSV.Ive seen more severe cases of RSV recently, said Taveras-Delgado.The three major warning signs doctors want parents to watch for in children are high fevers that dont improve with medicine, dehydration, and difficulty breathing.Those things you have to pay a lot of attention to if you seelike bobbing of the head and breathing on through the belly really fast then thats definitely a hallmark and you have to take the kid to the emergency room right away, said Taveras-Delgado.Teng told ABC Action News with new preventive measures for RSV, hes hopeful there will be fewer severe cases in infants if parents take advantage of them.We do have really good new maternal vaccination as well as this long-lasting antibody for infants so you know those are great tools that we didnt have a couple of years ago for RSV, said Tang.Doctors recommend that you wash your hands frequently to prevent illness. They also encourage you to keep your children home from school if theyre sick to limit the spread of the disease.