Some hospitals across the United States say their beds are full as cases of respiratory viruses continue to increase among children.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, infections due to respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, have spiked by 69% over the last four weeks from 4,667 to 7,917 and are appearing earlier than usual.
At the same time, doctors are preparing for what could be the most severe flu season seen in years after little-to-no flu activity during the pandemic and the potential threat of COVID-19, which has traditionally increased during Thanksgiving over the last two years.
Dr. Anita Patel, attending in pediatric critical care medicine at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C, said she and her colleagues are seeing a rapidly diminishing number of available pediatric beds.
“We have been operating at essentially near capacity for the past several weeks,” she told ABC News.
Patel said the high number of patients is mainly due to a mix of RSV cases and flu cases, the latter of which are 10 times higher this year compared to last year at her hospital.
“What I can tell you about the flu, which is pretty dramatic compared to last year, is we’ve seen already 80 patients that are positive for the flu across our health system, which is compared to only eight from last year. So, we really are seeing this early flu surge,” she said.
Because of the surge in patients, this has led to between 10 and 20 children at any given point at Children’s National emergency room waiting for a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) bed, although Patel says PICU-level care has been provided to kids who are waiting to be transferred.
Additionally, staff at University of California, San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital, in Oakland, say they are currently operating at capacity. (ABC)