US hospitals struggling with Covid surge8 Aug 2021 14:37
US average of daily Covid-19 cases hits highest level since February, fuelled by the Delta variant
Meanwhile, Southern states are also seeing an increasing number of young people contract Covid-19 and be hospitalized because of it.
"Something very scary now is happening in the Southern United States. We are seeing this massive surge of hospitalizations of young people that we've never seen before in hospitals across the South," Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN's Jim Acosta on Saturday.
"Our Texas Medical Center now is getting hit very hard here in Houston with lots and lots of Covid admissions. It's like nothing we've seen before. It's many, many young people, including, I'm sorry to say, many children's hospital admissions. And for the first time that I can remember, we're starting to see pediatric intensive care units get overwhelmed, which we never really saw before."
An 11-month-old girl, Ava Amira Rivera, who tested positive for Covid-19 had to be airlifted to a Texas hospital 150 miles away because of a shortage of pediatric beds in the Houston area. The baby became stable and is no longer intubated.