Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

WizardMama t1_it6jqcj wrote

> Pediatricians locally and nationally report a spike in cases of respiratory illnesses such as RSV and rhinovirus — the common cold virus — which for the second consecutive year have hit earlier and made kids sicker than usual. At the same time, the coronavirus continues to circulate, and hospitals are bracing for a severe flu season.

87

PuraVida3 t1_it6v4ab wrote

Johns Hopkins is in Baltimore. That isn't the DC area.

−36

seanrok t1_it71zy5 wrote

Just had a really bad case in my home. We all got it and it was bad and persistent.

67

Persy0376 t1_it77uj9 wrote

My whole family is getting over being sick as well. We have a toddler in daycare. They didn't even test us for RSV - but, guarantee that it what it was.

22

JennJayBee t1_it7flq3 wrote

Lots of hospitals are packed right now— not just D.C. RSV is making a comeback, and this time is even worse than summer 2021.

Thing is, it can be prevented so easily just by wearing masks, but I swear some parents would rather have their kids in the hospital than bother with masks.

30

TwoTreeBrain t1_it7go8u wrote

Our children’s hospital is full or nearly full on a daily basis, has been for a while now and we are all getting pretty burnt out. Colleagues around the country are having similar experiences. And to think, a few years ago when masking was much more prevalent, the hospital was running at all-time low volumes.

17

nsfwuseraccnt t1_it7hq43 wrote

Stupid paywall.

​

>Children’s hospitals in the D.C. area have been full for weeks, with patients stacking up in emergency departments as a surge in respiratory illnesses exacerbates the strain of staff shortages and a dwindling supply of pediatric beds.
Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning.
Children’s National Hospital in Northwest D.C., as well as the children’s hospitals at Inova Fairfax in Northern Virginia and the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, which represent a total of more than 650 beds, are at capacity, physicians at the hospitals said this week.
Pediatricians locally and nationally report a spike in cases of respiratory illnesses such as RSV and rhinovirus — the common cold virus — which for the second consecutive year have hit earlier and made kids sicker than usual. At the same time, the coronavirus continues to circulate, and hospitals are bracing for a severe flu season.
“We are treating a very high number of severely ill children,” said Sarah Combs, an emergency medicine physician at Children’s National.
At one point on Tuesday, 18 children were waiting for a pediatric intensive care unit, or PICU, bed at Children’s National, which has 323 inpatient beds and primarily serves the greater Washington area. The system remotely cares for children farther away, in Virginia and Maryland as well as Pennsylvania and Delaware. Even as they detailed the crunch, officials stressed that hospitals’ inpatient, intensive care and emergency departments remain open and that children in need of care will never be turned away.
How to get an updated covid booster in D.C., Maryland and Virginia
Experts speculate that effects of pandemic shutdowns two years ago, when precautions were in full swing, may mean that children’s immune systems got a break and weren’t ready to fight illnesses this year. Even without the pandemic, they say, some viruses are particularly virulent some years.
When inpatient beds are full, children who come to a hospital via the emergency department and are sick enough to be admitted have nowhere to go and must stay in the emergency room until a bed opens or they improve enough to go home. The situation is especially serious when a child needs intensive care.
Sofia Teferi, a pediatrician at MedStar Montgomery Medical Center, said Wednesday she was treating a 4-month-old in the emergency department because she could not find the patient an intensive care bed in the region.
“The fact that you have to look at the parent and say your kid needs ICU-level care but we have no bed for them: That’s a very hard conversation to have,” she said. “I’m just floored by the whole thing — in the nation’s capital.”
The situation is not unique to the D.C. metropolitan area. At the height of the pandemic, in many cases, hospitals converted pediatric beds to treat adults and never switched them back. Henrico Doctors’ Hospital in Richmond closed pediatric inpatient and PICU beds this spring, citing too few patients. The problem predates covid. MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center closed its inpatient pediatric unit in 2018 for the same reason.
Eric Biondi, chief of pediatric hospital medicine at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, said the hospital’s 80 pediatric acute-care beds, 20 oncology beds and approximately 28 PICU beds are “completely full.” The hospital reached this point a few times over the pandemic, he said, but this time is different because covid is not the driver.
‘This is a big deal for my family’: At-risk kids 5-11 get coronavirus vaccine first
“It’s not just a problem of how busy we are at Hopkins, which we are, but it flows out to the remote community emergency rooms that have to move kids,” he said.
Joanna Fazio, vice president for the Pediatric Service Line at Inova, said Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital is also operating at or beyond capacity at times. Clinicians reported less of the usual lag in illness they typically see in the summer; instead, illnesses began to build in August and September and haven’t let up.
Of the hospital’s 226 pediatric beds, about half are for newborn intensive care and 26 are pediatric intensive care unit beds, she said. On Tuesday, the PICU was on what Fazio called “capacity alert,” or full, meaning doctors seeking to transfer sick kids had to keep searching for a bed.
“We have every strategy in place to try to expand capacity where we can,” she said.
Fazio sees no end in sight. “We’re preparing for it to last through flu season because we know what our disease patterns are. Our predictions are only as good as the next day,” she said.
It’s a fact of emergency medicine that non-urgent cases will present in the emergency room, but given that volumes are higher overall, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center reopened its covid tent to see lower-acuity non-covid patients, and L.J. Murphy Children’s is looking at ways to repurpose spaces. Doctors ask parents to consider calling their pediatricians or visiting urgent care if their child does not need acute intervention. Many have guidelines to help parents decide what to do.
In nod to mission, new D.C. hospital takes name from Frederick Douglass’s estate
Combs, of Children’s National, acknowledged that parents are under a lot of pressure coming out of the worst of the pandemic, but she stressed the importance of getting themselves and their children vaccinated for the coronavirus and the flu.
She added that two years ago, covid-prevention measures, such as wearing masks, social distancing, hand-washing and avoiding large gatherings, resulted in very little RSV, flu and rhinovirus — lessons that parents can apply even as new coronavirus infections wane.
“In order to give both a sprout of hope and also some micro sense of control of, ‘Well, what can I do other than panic?’ ” she said. “Go back to basics, do what you’ve been doing over the past couple of years of pandemic: Get your immunizations … and just do your best.”

56

freestevenandbrendan t1_it7i5oj wrote

Children's hospitals all over the country are at or above capacity. Not just in DC. We need more pediatric trained nurses, RTs, and doctors. But insurance companies have decided that old people who need a gazillion procedures are worth more than trying to keep our children healthy.

0

apgren87 t1_it7l2mf wrote

My kids caught it recently they are older. I assume they caught it at school. Now I'm kinda more anal about handing washing treating it like it's covid

4

Bison256 t1_it7vxo5 wrote

Got hit with it recently, not fun but not as bad as COVID.

2

overkil6 t1_it7wplg wrote

I’ll preface this by stating that I’m a believer in covid (hate that this needs to be said). But any chance that this is a result of mask mandates? Kids don’t get exposed at the normal age and it somehow hits them worse? Sort of like chicken pox/shingles for adults?

−9

Odd-Employment2517 t1_it7yd5p wrote

Replying to overkil6 (#166,965)

Wearing a mask would prevent the spread of this, colds were signifigantly down when mandates were in effect. I guess you could be arguing we should have mask mandates every cold season since wearing masks so effectively cut down on colds and the flu during 2020 and 21?

7

ClickElectronic t1_it84vnk wrote

Replying to tetoffens (#164,329)

Our government defines it as only going one county north past DC into Maryland (Montgomery/PG). As someone who's lived inside the beltway for most of my life, I've really never heard Baltimore being included.

>The Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MA-WV, Core Based Statistical Area includes the District of Columbia; the counties of Calvert, Charles, Frederick, Montgomery, and Prince George’s in Maryland; the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, Manassas, and Manassas Park and the counties of Arlington, Clarke, Culpeper, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William, Rappahannock, Spotsylvania, Stafford, and Warren in Virginia; and the county of Jefferson in West Virginia.

And it's not going to be under an hour unless you're speeding late at night with how bad traffic is around here haha.

1

overkil6 t1_it87dob wrote

Replying to Odd-Employment2517 (#167,111)

I'm saying that kids were wearing masks for 2+ years. Schools and daycares were closed and now all bets are off. Kids haven't been exposed to viruses as much as before.

I guess I'm asking if kids immune systems aren't tested like they used to be is there collateral damage?

−7

unfinished_diy t1_it888m5 wrote

Replying to overkil6 (#166,965)

It’s a bit of everything. RSV is a big daycare/ preschool disease (it’s very contagious). So generally every year a certain number of kids build up immunity. The last 2 and half years prevented a lot of spread many ways- kids with any sign of cough were immediately sent home from school or daycare and were told to stay there until it was completely gone. Parks were closed for a while, kiddie gyms were closed, birthday parties cancelled, less travel, less visiting relatives, not to mention parents who were particularly concerned not bringing their kids to stores and restaurants. Older siblings were podded, masked and distanced at school (my daughter had no snack, outdoor lunches, windows open year round, water breaks in the coat room, etc). All that suppresses spread, not simply masks.

Now that it’s all gone, the disease has lots more room to spread. My younger daughter is in preschool. 15 kids in the class, about a third have older siblings. Typically they probably would have already been exposed/ have caught RSV. This year, the whole class is probably vulnerable (obviously I haven’t actually tested all these kids, just an example).

7

Blenderx06 t1_it8lvik wrote

When one of us gets sick, my family has started isolating and having the sick person and anyone who goes in their room mask. I've got 4 kids and since we've been doing this, we've been able to prevent at least a few people in my house getting sick when one does. Before that, we all certainly would, round and round, so I would advise any household to do this.

8

JennJayBee t1_it8nzax wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#166,980)

Editing at the top to add that the article actually says the opposite of what you're implying.

>[Combs] added that two years ago, covid-prevention measures, such as wearing masks, social distancing, hand-washing and avoiding large gatherings, resulted in very little RSV, flu and rhinovirus — lessons that parents can apply even as new coronavirus infections wane.

>“In order to give both a sprout of hope and also some micro sense of control of, ‘Well, what can I do other than panic?’ ” she said. “Go back to basics, do what you’ve been doing over the past couple of years of pandemic: Get your immunizations … and just do your best.”

In other words, "if it worked before, it'll work now"— not "this was a very bad idea that made things worse."

---------

While for-profit health care is problematic, the idea that masks have weakened immune systems is utter horseshit, as kids haven't been wearing masks in schools for the most part for quite a while now. Every person without a mask they've come into contact with has provided exposure to them and their germs and, as an extension, anyone they've come into contact with and whoever they've come into contact with and so on.

If that was anywhere near the case, you would only see kids being hospitalized from families who'd been strictly adhering to masking and isolating. I think you'll discover that few meet that criteria.

We do however know that covid infection itself puts the body through quite a bit, and that especially during recovery it can be harder to fight off other illnesses. We also know that covid can have lasting effects on the immune system.

Contrary to this belief, it's been shown that wearing masks (in significantly reducing exposure but maybe allowing a smaller initial dose of virus as opposed to the larger one you'd be exposed to with no mask), that this could offer MORE benefit to an immune system.

But if you think greater exposure to viruses is the more important factor in preventing illnesses, by all means feel free to roll the dice with your own kids.

29

JennJayBee t1_it8qz2k wrote

Replying to overkil6 (#166,965)

The reverse happens to be true with RSV. RSV is usually more serious in infants and elderly. You don't want your baby to get RSV. It's typically much milder in older children and adults.

4

TheOffbeatWonderland t1_it8wpxg wrote

Replying to freestevenandbrendan (#165,599)

I'm not sure why you are getting down voted. I work in the Pediatrics field. We are less paid than almost every single specialty. You would think insurance companies, for instance, would want to address problems from the earliest moment they could to prevent issues down the road. More issues down the road would require insurance companies to spend more money in the future, something insurance companies notoriously hate. Investing in children when they're children prevents so many health problems in the future.

Take physicians for instance. In 2020, pediatricians (primary care - children) were averaging around $220K; primary care for adults, while still low, still managed to squeak ahead. Some of the lowest paid states for pediatricians saw this salary drop to $120K.

You'd think subspecialtities like pediatric oncology would be paid relatively well given the specialization, right? No; in most circumstances, they barely make more than primary care.

Nursing, RT, CNA, Rad Tech, Child Life.... if it's in the Pediatric world, it's often paid less than other medical specialities. A few places across America may be different, but overall, this has been the case in the majority of places I've looked into.

Sucks. End of story.

10

epdiablo02 t1_it9l2sf wrote

Replying to seanrok (#165,255)

Consider allergy meds. Oldest child had chronic croup for years as well as frequent bouts of asthma and eczema. Started Children’s Claritin around age five and there have been barely any issues with croup, asthma and/or eczema since then.

Also, using saline nasal irrigation at the first sign of stuffy nose/congestion cut the recovery time from respiratory bugs in half and generally would prevent the congestion from settling in the lungs (so we would avoid 1-2 weeks of unnecessary coughing).

6

jschubart t1_it9z9af wrote

Get your flu and COVID vaccines. We need to make sure the hospitals are not clogged up. They are still short staffed.

9

Spartanswill2 t1_itay70p wrote

This flu that's going around sucks. It's not fun at all.

1

D4RKNESSAW1LD t1_itbuq94 wrote

Came through my house. Lasted a week. Not even a fevers. Sniffles sore throats.

1

PuraVida3 t1_ituao6g wrote

Replying to ClickElectronic (#167,744)

I saw this too. I have a hard time including cities that were originally connected by land only by Route 1 as being in the same area. It's understandable for statistical purposes but it doesn't feel right to someone who's lived in both DC and Bmore.

1