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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – More than 500 children have tested positive for COVID-19 or respiratory syncytial virus, commonly known as RSV, last week at Kansas City Children’s Mercy.
According to Children’s Mercy, 269 patients tested positive for COVID-19 and 259 tested positive for RSV last week among inpatients and outpatients treated in the hospital system from July 26 to August 1.
As of late spring, Children’s Mercy was averaging about 30 positive pediatric COVID-19 cases per week. That number doubled in June and rose again in July, according to Dr Jennifer Schuster, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children’s Mercy Hospital.
According to Children’s Mercy, 10 pediatric COVID-19 patients were hospitalized on Monday afternoon.
Schuster said breathing problems and shortness of breath are the most common reasons children who are positive for COVID19 require hospitalization.
“We are certainly seeing an increase, and the number is now higher than what we have seen throughout the pandemic,” said Schuster.
The length of stay for patients varies, including some patients who stay hospitalized for as little as 24 hours, according to Schuster.
Children’s Mercy has seen an average of nine to 11 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in recent weeks.
This has been combined with the rise in RSV cases, including some that also require hospitalization – an unusual circumstance during the summer months.
“It’s a common virus,” Schuster said. “Most children get it in their first year of life and it usually circulates around flu season. … This year we really haven’t seen many RSVs, possibly because all the measures to stop COVID-19 – masking, distancing – have also kept RSV from circulating. “
This trend was also evident nationwide, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting only one pediatric death from influenza in the 2020-21 season.
Schuster attributed the increase in COVID-19 and RSV diagnoses to changes in behavior after health orders expired in May and “people started to unmask themselves, to be less socially or physically distant, and started to return to their pre-COVID-19 habits. “
Kansas City, Missouri reinstated a mask warrant indoors for people vaccinated and unvaccinated this week.
Schools in the Kansas City area, including De Soto USD 232, examine health-related mitigation strategies for the 2021-2022 school year, which begins in the coming weeks in the midst of a new wave of COVID-19 powered by the delta variant.
RELATED | 100 KC area physician school districts to adopt universal masking
The growing number of cases – both COVID-19 and RSV – has pushed Children’s Mercy “to full capacity”, the hospital said last week.
This does not mean that Children’s Mercy was unable to accept new patients, but it did require longer wait times for beds and additional staff for those beds in order to accommodate the unusually high number of patients admitted for. care.
“Capacity can mean a number of different things,” Schuster said. “It may mean that the children have to wait on the beds. This may mean that additional staff are needed. It can mean a variety of different things. Sometimes that means the kids just need to wait a little longer in our emergency department before they can go upstairs and find a bed. But we take care of all these children and protect them while they are in the hospital. “
Increased wait times for admission of patients was the biggest problem last week, said Schuster, “but we were able to take care of all the children who came to the hospital.”
“We have seen an increase in RSV and children requiring hospitalization,” she said. “Like everyone else in the community, we are seeing an increase in our cases of COVID-19. We have never lost our ability to take care of children. We continued to hospitalize the children and treat them appropriately. “
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