At least 20 children hospitalized with COVID
The number of kids with COVID-19 at Nationwide Children’s Hospital continued to climb this week.
As of Monday morning, 20 children were hospitalized at Nationwide Children’s, said Dr. Rustin Morse, the hospital’s chief medical officer. That’s up from 12 children early last week.
At least five children were in the hospital’s intensive care unit and two were on ventilators, Morse said. One of the two children on ventilators has no underlying conditions that would have made a serious case of COVID-19 more likely, Morse said during a briefing Monday.
“Children are not immune to getting COVID,” Morse said. “You can be perfectly healthy and you can actually get this disease as a child and become critically ill.”
Morse expressed concerns that the current return to school could result in more cases of COVID-19 among children. He encouraged students to mask up when returning to the classroom.
Nationwide Children’s has also seen a high number of unseasonable cases of (RSV), which typically peaks in winter. As of Monday, 40 kids were hospitalized at Nationwide Children’s with RSV.
Last week, Nationwide Children’s expanded its ICU bed capacity to deal with the influx of patients, a spokeswoman said Thursday. Morse said the hospital could handle more patients if necessary and is not diverting any admissions. mfilby@dispatch.com @Maxfilby
“Children are not immune to getting COVID. You can be perfectly healthy and you can actually get this disease as a child and become critically ill.”
Dr. Rustin Morse