An average of 369 people with COVID-19 are being admitted daily to hospitals in the Texas Medical Center -- a new record high for the pandemic. The weekly average of new cases dropped for the first time in seven weeks.
During this fourth wave, children have become a focal point as pediatric cases rise.
Dr. Lara Shekerdemian is chief of critical care at Texas Children’s Hospital. Although they’re very busy, she says there are ICU beds available in the hospital.
“We’ve had a lot of COVID hospitalizations. At the moment, there are around 35 or so in our hospital system, and 40% of them require intensive care,” she said.
Shekerdemian says many children are also sick with both COVID and RSV. Nearly 30 pediatric patients are hospitalized with a combination of the viruses, and many more have tested positive for both, but have not been admitted.
“The combination, we don’t have enough data to find out if it’s much worse than having one or the other, but you’ve got two potentially fatal diseases attacking the same child so we take that very, very seriously,” Shekerdemian said.
Doctors recommend all parents take this surge seriously because they expect cases to continue climbing as more kids return to school.