11-Month-Old Baby With COVID-19 Airlifted Due To Hospital Bed Shortage In Texas

An 11-month-old Texas baby with COVID-19 was airlifted to a hospital 150 miles away due to hospital bed shortages in her area.

The Texas baby, who was tested positive for the coronavirus, had suffered seizures and had to be intubated in the ICU.

The situation worsened since the hospital that she was initially admitted to, Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, didn’t have pediatric services.

On Thursday, she had to be transported by an air ambulance to Baylor Scott & White McLane Children’s Medical Center, a hospital that is around 150 miles away from where she was initially admitted.

The doctors from the second hospital said that she is making an excellent recovery.

“She no longer requires the breathing machine. She’s actually off that right now … and she’s actually resting with mom,” Dominic Lucia, a pediatric emergency doctor at the hospital, told CNN. “She’s looking great.”

Lucia, however, warned about the recent surge in the COVID-19 cases among children amid the growing Delta variant.

“With the Delta variant, we certainly are seeing just more infectivity across the population that includes kids. That includes infants as well,” Lucia said. “And with this particular surge, we are seeing more kids that are symptomatic that test positive, more babies that are symptomatic and test positive.”

Texas and Florida have accounted for a third of the entire COVID-19 cases reported in the United States for the past week.

Article by Dongyoon Shin