PEORIA, Ill. – While local COVID-19 cases are continuing to increase somewhat, local health officials say there’s one age group that, thankfully, isn’t that impacted yet.
Other areas of the country have seen increases in COVID-19 cases among young children, but OSF Children’s Hospital of Illinois president Michael Wells says that’s not the case in terms of hospitalized children here. But, that’s not to say there aren’t other viruses being spread.
“We are currently experiencing a surge of other infections illnesses — primarily RSV,” said Wells. “Many of the kids that we are seeing are very sick. That has presented some challenges in terms of our bed capacity, especially in our intensive care beds.”
RSV symptoms can seem a lot like COVID.
“It tends to be fever, runny nose, cough, congestion, respiratory distress, that sort of thing,” said Dr. Keith Hanson, University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria. “And it’s hard for the parent or even general pediatrician to know which virus it is. That’s why we encourage testing so much, so we can know.
OSF says the Children’s Hospital saw a brief spike in pediatric COVID cases last weekend, at seven. But, it’s otherwise been trending to be around two.
As of Thursday, the Tri-County region has 50,801 total confirmed cases of COVID-19, an increase of 777 over the past week. Of those, Peoria has 25,771 cases, Tazewell County has 19,480, and Woodford County has 5,550. There have been a total of 809 COVID deaths. Two deaths reported Thursday in Peoria County, officials with the Peoria City/County Health Department said, were unvaccinated.
Thirteen ICU beds in local hospitals are currently being used for COVID patients, while 60 non-ICU beds are being used.
