Lee Health sees rise in children with COVID-19 symptoms

Lee Health is asking the public to mask their children after a steep rise in emergency department visits at Golisano Children’s Hospital.

According to the hospital system, the children’s hospital saw 200 emergency room visits on Thursday with 123 children exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms.

“For comparison, the children’s hospital emergency department typically received about 75 visits per day before the current COVID surge,” Lee Health said.

Dr. Alfredo Vargas, at Golisano Children’s Hospital, said his team is tired and they can’t continue at this pace.

Vargas said of the 123 with COVID-like symptoms, a high percentage tested positive but were OK to go home.

Vargas said five kids with COVID are admitted to the hospital. Two of them are in the intensive care unit.

The hospital system is reporting the following:

• Lee Health currently has 593 COVID-19 patients isolated in our hospitals (inpatient).
• Of these patients, 5 of them are children under the age of 18.
• Yesterday, there were 71 new COVID-19 hospital admissions and 57 COVID-19 discharges.
• Currently, 55% of ventilators and 7% of ICU rooms are available for use. There are 65 COVID-19 patients on ventilators and 86 in the intensive care unit.
• Current census is at 95% of staffed operational bed capacity.
• Since the start of the pandemic, 819 patients have died inside Lee Health hospitals to COVID-19, including 9 yesterday.