The Children’s Hospital Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics told the Biden administration that “unprecedented levels” of RSV combined with increasing flu circulation are pushing some hospitals to the breaking point, – reported CNBC.
They asked the federal government to declare an emergency to provide hospitals with added flexibility to meet the surge.
Infants 6 months and younger are getting hospitalized with RSV at seven times the rate observed before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2018, according to CDC data.
Doctors are calling on the Biden administration to declare an emergency in response to an “alarming surge” of children hospitalized with respiratory syncytial virus and flu this season.
The Children’s Hospital Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics warned President Joe Biden and Health Secretary Xavier Becerra in a letter this week that “unprecedented levels” of RSV combined with increasing flu circulation are pushing some hospitals to the breaking point.
Infants 6 months and younger are getting hospitalized with RSV at more than seven times the rate observed before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2018, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Flu hospitalizations are also at a decade high with children and the elderly most at risk, according to the CDC.
As respiratory viruses surge, more than three-fourths of pediatric hospital beds are occupied across the U.S., according to data from the Health and Human Services Department. Seventeen states are reporting that more than 80% of beds are full, according to the data. Children’s hospitals in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Maine, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Kentucky and Utah are almost completely at capacity.
An emergency declaration would provide hospitals with the flexibility needed to free up bed capacity and staffing to make sure children get the care they need, Children’s Hospital Association CEO Mark Wietecha and AAP CEO Mark Del Monte told Biden and Becerra in the letter this week.
The president should declare an emergency under the Stafford Act or the National Emergencies Act, and the health secretary should declare a public health emergency, Wietecha and Del Monte wrote.
“We need emergency funding support and flexibilities along the same lines of what was provided to respond to COVID surges,” they wrote.
The surge in kids falling ill with respiratory viruses comes amid staffing shortages as many health care workers have switched careers or retired due to pandemic-era burnout. There also are large numbers of children being hospitalized for mental issues which is also straining capacity.
The American College of Emergency Physicians, in a letter to Biden earlier this month, warned that emergency departments are at a “breaking point” as patient volume exceeds staffed beds. Hospitals are often forced to hold patients in emergency departments because there are no inpatient beds available, which can result in long waits, diminished care and bad results for patients. ACEP described the situation as a public health emergency.
Oregon this week became the first state to declare on emergency in response to the RSV surge. Gov. Kate Brown said the declaration will support the state’s two pediatric hospitals through the deployment of emergency volunteer medical teams. Oregon’s pediatric hospitalization rate has more than tripled since late October, according to the governor’s office.
A spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department said the federal government is offering communities support on a case-by-case basis. A national public health emergency would be determined based on countrywide data, science trends and the insight of public health experts, the spokesperson said.
Senior U.S. health officials, in a call with reporters earlier this month, said the federal government is working with state and local partners to ease capacity issues at hospitals as respiratory illnesses surge. Dawn O’Connell, the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, said federal health teams and medical supplies in the national stockpile are available for states when needed. So far, no state has requested this level of support, O’Connell said.
Public health officials in the U.S have repeatedly called on all eligible people to receive their Covid booster and flu shot to help ease the burden of respiratory disease this winter. There is no vaccine for RSV.
About 171 out of every 100,000 infants younger than 6 months were hospitalized with RSV for the week ending Nov. 12, according to the CDC’s surveillance system that tracks 12 states. That is more than double the RSV hospitalization rate for newborns last year and more than seven times the rate in 2018, the last complete season before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The flu is hospitalizing about 13 out every 100,000 kids younger than age 5, according to CDC data. The hospitalization rate for these kids is at a decade high and nearly double the overall current national rate. Seven kids have died of the flu so far this season, according to CDC.
RSV and flu are surging in part because people have largely abandoned the public health measures implemented during the height of the Covid pandemic, such as masking and social distancing, which suppressed circulation of these viruses, according Dr. Jose Romero, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
Romero, during a call with reporters earlier this month, said many children did not get infected with RSV over the past two years due to the Covid health precautions. As a consequence, many kids did not develop any immunity and are catching the virus for the first time. The first infection tends to be more severe.
RSV is a common respiratory virus that almost all children catch by age 2. It normally causes mild symptoms similar to a cold, but the virus can be dangerous for infants 6 months and younger as well as school-aged kids who have weak immune systems. It is the leading cause of hospitalization for infants in the U.S., according to the CDC.
