HJBR Nov/Dec 2021

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE I  NOV / DEC 2021 25 How did the SARS-Cov-2 Delta variant affect children differently than previous common variants? There were certainly more children affected. It wasn’t entirely clear whether that was because the new variant was harder on kids or whether there was so much more community spread in general. The Delta variant was more contagious, and it struck as people had become more relaxed due to the vaccine and a relative slow-down after the winter surge. Many people had started attending social events again, had discarded their masks, and were sending children to overnight summer camps. The respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) had already made an unexpected appearance. We started receiv- ing a big influx of calls and messages about respiratory symptoms in outpatients, and the OLOL Children’s hospital, emergency room and clinics became very busy for sev- eral months. What changes did OLOL Children’s Health experience in case numbers, severity of cases and death rates? The hospital’s capacity was challenged to the point that patients were held waiting for longer periods in the emergency depart- ment. The census of COVID-19 patients went from 0-1 to 6-10 per day with a few of those in the ICU each day. We lost two chil- dren to COVID-19 over the summer. We also saw another bump in cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS), a rare but serious complication of recent COVID-19 infection. How did the Delta variant affect the hospital’s response to COVID-19? Nursing and physician staff were stretched similarly to what had already happened on the adult wards. We were very Ashley Lucas, MD, earned a medical degree from the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, TX. She completed a pediatric residency at Tulane, Ochsner and University Hospitals in New Orleans. She serves Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Health as medical director of general pediatrics. Ashley Lucas, MD Pediatrician at Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Health and Medical Director of General Pediatrics at OLOL Physician Group