A surge in children contracting RSV, a serious respiratory illness, is filling pediatric beds at Naperville’s Edward Hospital and other suburban medical facilities and forcing some to wait long hours in ERs or be sent downstate for treatment.
The situation is one that’s growing nationally, with medical professionals at Edward and across the country surprised not only by the number of young patients requiring hospitalization for the virus but contracting it far earlier in the season than normal, said Dr. Carly Senescu, a pediatric specialist at Edward.
RSV stands for respiratory syncytial virus, which is a common illness with cold-like systems that can lead to breathing difficulties.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, when people started wearing masking and limiting contact, viruses like RSV would typically peak in the winter, Senescu said. This year, they started seeing cases in July, she said.
“I’ve been a pediatrician in the Chicago area since 2004, and I have never seen RSV — which is the name of the common virus right now — in July in my life,” she said. “It’s just not a virus you see in July. It’s a January-February virus.”
This RSV season is unusual, too, because the cases they’re seeing are not the typical “Johnny stayed home from school for two or three days and went back after a couple of doses of Tylenol,” Senescu said.
Rather, she’s said, it’s more like Johnny went to the urgent care and the clinic sent him to the emergency room for possible hospitalization. “The severity of the illness is significantly worse,” she said.
Complicating the rise in RSV cases are the reduction in pediatric beds at community hospitals over the last 5 to 10 years, Senescu said. “Now we have this surge of pediatric patients and a very limited number of spaces for them to be admitted,” she said.
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It’s scary for parents to learn their child needs to be admitted, she said. Then they find out the hospital can’t find a bed, and they’re stuck in the emergency room waiting for what can be 16, 18 and 20 hours, she said.
“There are families that I’m seeing that had been in a hospital since the day before waiting for my unit to have an open bed, and I think that is what’s so shocking,” Senescu said.
And it’s happening all over the area.
“We are getting calls from Indiana, Wisconsin, Peoria, downtown Chicago, Lake Forest, Highland Park looking for beds. These are emergency rooms across the Chicagoland area calling me saying do you have an open bed,” Senescu said.
Parents who send their 4-year-old to day care know their child is going to end up getting sick at some point, she said.
What they don’t understand is why they went to the emergency room at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago and ended up in Naperville or “where I went to Naperville and the ER doctor told me the only bed was in Peoria. And we did have to shift a kid to Peoria,” Senescu said. “It’s really all hands on deck.”
That’s why hospital medical directors throughout the region meet every morning, checking how many people are waiting in the emergency room and how many spaces could be available with patients possibly going home, she added.
With flu season approaching and the possibility of COVID-19 recurring, Senescu advises parents and children to get vaccinated.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized updated boosters for elementary school-age kids to expand protection ahead of the anticipated winter wave.
The agency greenlighted the Pfizer vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds, and a version from rival Moderna for those as young as 6.
While there wasn’t a big rush, federal health officials suggest getting the extra protection ahead of holiday gatherings.
Senescu said the COVID-19 vaccine reduces the chances of an emergency room visit or hospitalization.
Those with an updated vaccine still may test positive for the coronavirus, she said, but “the likelihood of you requiring hospitalization is so rare.
“Every kid that I’ve seen that has been hospitalized because of COVID was unvaccinated … and right now we don’t have a bed for you,” she said.
The flu outlook for the 2022-23 season is daunting.
Australia just experienced its worst flu season in five years, and what happens in Southern Hemisphere winters often foreshadow what Northern countries can expect, said Dr. Andrew Pekosz, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
To prevent the spread of any virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests washing hands often, cleaning frequently touched surfaces and avoiding close contact with people with cold-like symptoms.
Senescu said besides hand washing, wearing a mask can protect children from the most severe viruses circulating, adding that it’s much easier to get kids to wear a paper mask than it is for her to get them to put on an oxygen mask.
The Associated Press’ Lauran Neergaard contributed