'This is real': Fear and hope in an Arkansas pediatric ICU

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Caia Alexx Morris, 13, had been sitting on the couch texting friends, and as other family members joked about the overpowering scent, it hit her that she had no idea what they were talking about. She had no other symptoms at the time. But two days later, she was diagnosed with covid-19 and on a ventilator, and has been in intensive care ever since.

“Thirty-four days,” her mother Angela Morris reflected last week while at Caia’s bedside at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. 816 hours. 48,960 minutes. And counting. “This is a nightmare.”

Outside Room No. 5 on the third floor, where Caia lay with a stuffed frog in one hand and a stuffed seal in the other, a crowd of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and other specialists buzzed around her and other sick children. The hospital had started the day with 23 covid patients, 10 in intensive care. Five of those were on ventilators, three on heart-and-lung bypass machines of last resort. It wouldn’t be long before more sick kids were on the way.

“You always have times when you cry,” Shonda Grappe, a pediatric intensive care nurse, said a few hours into her shift. “Everyone is feeling this.”

The hyper-contagious delta variant has changed much of what we thought we knew about the coronavirus and children — that kids might get infected, but they were extremely unlikely to become seriously ill. Today, as delta infections mount, some front line doctors suggest children are being hospitalized at higher rates and with more serious illnesses because of the new variant — a still-unproven hypothesis. What is indisputable is that in a swath of low-vaccination states stretching from Florida, South Carolina and Texas, up to Indiana and Missouri, the first large wave of pediatric cases is hitting hard — overwhelming hospitals, dominating political debates over mask and vaccine mandates and throwing school reopening plans into disarray.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/this-is-real-fear-and-hope-in-an-arkansas-pediatric-icu/ar-AANhROK

[UpInArms]

1. The pro death party of the GQP is intentionally killing children

I do not believe I can despise any group of upright beings more than I do them.

[CottonBear]

2. The 13 year old should have been vaccinated. NT

[Bettie]

3. And that is why my 12 year old got

his first shot the day after it was approved for kids his age.

Not taking unnecessary chance with my kid's life.

[GPV]

4. Just wow!

[Wingus Dingus]

5. Had not really considered the predicament of children with health conditions

that put them at higher risk of covid death. As mentioned in the article, they really need everyone to wear masks, or they'll be forced to stay home. I think they have a right to a classroom education, don't they? Aren't Abbot, DeSantis, etc. essentially denying them the right to attend school?