As respiratory virus cases surge among kids in Philly region, children’s hospitals filling up with ‘young babies that are struggling to breathe’

Coughing, wheezing and feverish, kids with respiratory illnesses are sometimes waiting more than six hours to be seen in the emergency department at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children.

This has only worsened in recent weeks as overflowing hospitals from as far away as Baltimore and the Washington, D.C., area have started transferring kids in respiratory distress to the North Philadelphia hospital.

“Our hospital is filling up with young babies that are struggling to breathe,” said James Reingold, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at St. Christopher’s, calling the spike highly unusual. While ER wait times have ranged from six to 10 hours on some days, Reingold stressed that kids who can’t breathe are given priority and seen quickly.

Cases of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, typically appear in October and peak in winter months. But children’s hospitals in the Philadelphia region are experiencing peak-season volume now — a fact that doesn’t bode well, given that flu and COVID-19 cases are expected to continue to rise through wintertime.

As a surge in respiratory illnesses overwhelms hospitals in the Mid-Atlantic region, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Friday of an early and alarming increase in influenza cases nationwide. Experts think the wave of illness, coming ahead of the traditional cold-weather cold and flu season, may be a consequence of the pandemic, when young children isolated at home did not build immunity to seasonal illnesses.

Within Philadelphia, cases of RSV — a cold-like respiratory virus that can be dangerous among infants and children with health complications — skyrocketed from 80 in mid-September to 520 in mid-October, according to surveillance data collected by the city’s Department of Public Health.

And influenza hospitalizations nationally are at the highest rates in a decade, according to José Romero, the CDC’s director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. The CDC is also tracking elevated levels of RSV and rhinovirus, with young children and older adults among the most vulnerable.

Romero attributed the current crush of sick children to ongoing fallout from COVID-19 prevention practices, such as masking and social distancing.

“We suspect that many children are being exposed to some respiratory viruses now for the first time, having avoided the viruses during the height of the pandemic,” Romero said during a telephone news briefing.

Romero and other CDC officials urged people to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and the flu, especially ahead of the holiday season, and wash their hands frequently to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses, including RSV, for which there is no vaccine.

» READ MORE: What is RSV, the cold-like virus filling CHOP, Nemours, other children's hospitals?

Parent Liz Lockerman said her 1-year-old son, Logan, developed bronchiolitis (inflammation of the lung’s airways), a complication from RSV, early last month. He spent four days at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where doctors gave him oxygen and fluids. The 36-year-old mom from the city’s Fairmount neighborhood said she waited more than an hour in the hospital’s ER before being seen and then there wasn’t a bed available.

“CHOP didn’t have any rooms so we were in an ER triage room, with just a stretcher that the kid is on and a chair, for 24 hours until we got a room,” Lockerman said. “I was basically on the stretcher holding him the entire night. And my husband was sitting in the chair and we switched back and forth.”

» READ MORE: Flu and cold season looks different because of the pandemic. Here are some tips to protect kids from viruses this winter.

At St. Christopher’s Hospital, for the week ending Oct. 29, 155 out of 359 children swabbed for RSV tested positive, roughly 43%. That weekly RSV rate surpassed pre-pandemic levels compared to the peak week in December 2019 when 109 out of 493 children, roughly 22%, tested positive for RSV.

Reingold said he wants state and federal officials to declare a public health emergency to free up funds so children’s hospitals like St. Christopher’s can hire more nurses, who quit in droves after COVID-19 hit.

“We have enough licensed beds but we’re facing a shortage of staff to be able to open them all,” Reingold said. “It’s been very challenging. A lot of nurses left the profession following COVID because of the burden placed on them and the burnout.”

Mark O’Neill, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, said his agency currently doesn’t have an emergency disaster declaration like the one Gov. Tom Wolf had issued for COVID-19 in March 2020. He said the department is “actively monitoring respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity across Pennsylvania,” noting the number of cases are higher than usual for this time of year.

Dawn O’Connell, assistant secretary for Preparedness and Response with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said they are closely monitoring caseloads at hospitals nationwide and are prepared to deploy additional personnel and supplies if needed.

Staff reporter Wendy Ruderman is writing about how families are coping with an RSV surge. If your child is currently receiving hospital treatment for RSV and you’d like to share your experience, email wruderman@inquirer.com.