BUFFALO, N.Y. — Children's hospitals across the country are being pushed to their limits as COVID-19 cases in children hit an all-time high this weekend.
And here in Western New York, the cases of respiratory illness cases in children are up.
On Sunday, the Pediatric Chair and Physician-in-Chief at Golisano Children's Hospital in Rochester tweeted that his hospital was full. Dr. Patrick Brophy said between respiratory viruses and COVID-19, the hospital was full and told people they could help the staff out by getting vaccinated.
Monday, 2 On Your Side checked in with Oishei Children's Hospital in Buffalo to see where things stand here. It's important to note that right now there are no children admitted to Oishei with COVID-19. They've had two admitted so far this month, but they did not require intensive care.
But, that's not the case when it comes to RSV. To put things in perspective, from January to June, Oishei had three patients per month on average admitted with RSV, a common respiratory virus. Last month, that jumped to 46 patients. So far this month, 51 patients. Those numbers are typically only seen in peak cold and flu season in the winter.
"Fortunately, we are not full and we have plenty of capacity for children, but we are starting to see an increase in RSV. So, for example, the number of RSV cases that we've seen in the Emergency Room and in-patient has exceeded right now in August what we've seen in all of July. We are starting to see kids admitted with it and we currently have four kids in the pediatric ICU admitted with RSV," says Stephen Turkovich, MD, Chief Medical Officer.
Dr. Turkovich says we typically don't see those numbers until mid to late November here, so this could be the start of an RSV surge like we're seeing in Rochester and in other parts of the country.
So, to stay healthy here are the most important things you can do according to the Chief Medical Officer at Oishei Children's Hospital. Of course, he says to wash your hands frequently to protect yourself.
"And wear a mask. I know many people don't want to hear that. There's a significant amount of mask fatigue out there, but masking has really been proven to prevent not only COVID but RSV and other respiratory viruses. And, the other most important thing to do to protect our children, especially those who are not eligible for the vaccine is to get vaccinated for COVID if you are eligible," says Dr. Turkovich.
Oishei is not full and still has plenty of capacity to take care of children who need to go to the hospital.
The hospital's Chief Medical Officer is also concerned for unvaccinated pregnant people.
"Some new studies recently came out I think as early as today that show that the risk of premature birth, especially early, early premature birth, is significantly increased if a woman were to get COVID while she's pregnant, so please if you're pregnant to protect yourself and your baby, the best thing to do is to get vaccinated," says Dr. Turkovich.
If you need to get vaccinated, you can find a list of places where the vaccine is available here.