Pediatric care in Jacksonville is under pressure amid a regional surge in COVID-19 cases.
On Friday, the Baptist Health system in Jacksonville reported it was treating 560 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, with over 100 in the ICU. A dozen were at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, which in the last three weeks has reported over two dozen kids were hospitalized with COVID-19. Three kids were in Wolfson’s ICU on Friday.
COVID-19 Update for August 6, 2021:
— Baptist Health (@BaptistHealthJx) August 6, 2021
- 560 COVID patients in our health system, 102 in ICU
- 12 of these are at @WolfsonChildren, 3 in ICU
We admitted 84 new COVID-19 positive patients yesterday, 3 were children.
In a Wednesday email update to patients and families, the Carithers Pediatric Group, a medical practice with two locations in Jacksonville, said its capacity has been “overwhelmed” due to the COVID-19 surge, between treating sick kids and fielding a flood of calls from concerned parents right before a new school year.
Florida broke its COVID-19 hospitalization record three times this week, with 12,516 patients hospitalized statewide on Thursday.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all people who are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine receive one, and that everyone older than age 2 wear a mask in school and camp settings.
Schedule a vaccine appointment at vaccines.gov, where you can select the location and vaccine brand.
Raymon Troncoso can be reached at rtroncoso@wjct.org, 904-358-6319 or on Twitter at @RayTroncoso.
