COVID-19 cases among kids overwhelming Florida hospitals: doc

 From the New York Post. Jackie Salo, reporter. Full story here.

Pediatric hospitals in Florida have become “completely overwhelmed” with young patients battling COVID-19 amid the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, a doctor says.

The grim development comes as Florida on Sunday reported having the highest number of children — 172 — hospitalized with the coronavirus, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

“The numbers of cases in our hospitals in children and our children’s hospitals are completely overwhelmed,” said Dr. Aileen Marty, an infectious-disease expert at Florida International University, to CNN late Friday.

“Our pediatricians, the nursing, the staff are exhausted, and the children are suffering. And it is absolutely devastating … Our children are very much affected. We’ve never seen numbers like this before,” she said.

Sharp rises in hospital admissions involving kids with COVID-19 have been recorded in other states, too — including Arkansas, which had its own record number of children Wednesday hospitalized with the virus.