SALT LAKE CITY — A recent influx of Respiratory Syncytial Virus cases has forced a Utah hospital to postpone certain surgeries and procedures as staff deal with the rising number of patients.
Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City has been at capacity or near capacity volume for several consecutive days, leading it to announce it is delaying a handful of prescheduled, non-emergency inpatient surgeries and outpatient procedures.
This coming after California reported the first pediatric RSV death of the season, and a surge of hospitalizations nationwide.
"Everyone in the community is urged to do all they can to stay well by staying home when they are sick, observing good hand hygiene, and getting vaccines for flu and COVID," said the hospital in a statement.
Haley Okoro experienced the impacts of RSV firsthand when her son was hospitalized. She noticed symptoms pulling and retracting on her son's neck and body — one of the first signs someone is working harder than normal to breathe. Okoro's sister, who is a nurse, told her to take the boy to doctor right away.
Luckily, Okoro's son was hospitalized for only two days, but she says the months that follow are something a lot of people don't think about.
"It can actually take an infants' lungs multiple months to recover from having those, any of them, and so we were told to pretty much not take him out for about three months after because he's just that much more susceptible of catching anything," Okoro said.
While Okoro's son has been able to make a full recovery, other parents have not been as lucky.
Charli Call of Bountiful shared images and videos of her son being resuscitated by hospital staff after nearly dying due to RSV. She says doctors even told her family to say their final goodbyes.
Her son survived but has been left with lasting diseases.
"He's okay, but he has reactive airway disease, asthma, as well as pulmonary hypertension caused by the damage to his lungs," said Call.
An epidemiologist with the Utah Department of Health and Human Services says most children will have had RSV by the time they are two, but any child under five is most susceptible to severE illness.
"You definitely want to watch for any symptoms of complications, if you're concerned you should definitely talk to your doctor especially if they're under that 5-year age range," said Janelle Delgadillo said.
Delgadillo says COVID-19 precautions during the height of the pandemic helped curb many other respiratory illnesses, but now they are making a comeback.
"We're definitely seeing reports of high occupancy in our hospitals, so it seems there are a lot of children being hospitalized with respiratory disease," she explained.
She also notes that the sharp increase in hospitalizations is not typical this early on in the cold/flu season.
"For RSV, unfortunately, there is no vaccine, so the best thing people can do is sort of common-sense respiratory hygiene, covering coughs and sneezes, staying out of school when you're ill, staying away from those who are ill."
Parents who had to hospitalize their child with RSV urge others to take respiratory illness symptoms seriously because they can take a turn for the worse quick.
"Take these precautions, be willing if you notice your kid has a cough, it's not shameful to put on a mask to keep them from spreading it to people," Okoro said.
