Rapidly spreading viral infections have pushed pediatric hospitalizations and daily emergency room visits to record levels in Orange County, prompting officials to declare a health emergency.

The county, like the rest of California, is facing a viral triple whammy: continued circulation of the coronavirus, seasonal rise of the flu and heightened spread of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, a respiratory illness that can be dangerous for small children.

Children’s hospitals can quickly become strained when viruses surge because relatively few beds are available to begin with. Orange County, for instance, has only two hospitals dedicated to caring for children, and both “have been operating at or beyond their capacity to care for pediatric [patients] with respiratory illness,” county health officer Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong said Tuesday.

Issuing an emergency declaration — which Chinsio-Kwong did late Monday — offers the government the ability to require hospitals that don’t typically treat children “to care for them if and when we need it,” she said. That flexibility could prove useful in the months ahead, when many officials expect both the coronavirus and influenza to become more active.

“I’m concerned with what the future holds,” Chinsio-Kwong said. Should flu and RSV cases surge simultaneously, “we’re in trouble. And typically those two viruses do affect our younger kids. And there’s only so many beds that a pediatric hospital has to care for the very sick.”