My Pediatric Unit Is Almost Empty
Hospitals across the country are seeing fewer sick kids; a pediatrician explores why
It’s a Friday in April, and after a week on service, I’m down to one pediatric patient in the hospital. Not that I’m wishing for sick children, but as a pediatric and adult hospitalist physician, this isn’t what I’m used to. This isn’t what the entire country and much of the world are used to either.
Where Have All the Sick Children Gone? That was the title of a recent article by Scott D. Krugman, MD, an editorial board member for the renowned medical journal, Pediatrics. Dr. Krugman isn’t the only medical provider asking this question.
In mid-March of 2020, it seemed like the whole planet came to a halt. The United States was on lockdown. We seldom exited our homes, and even when we did, we rarely ventured close to another human.
Few were surprised, then, by data published by Jonathan Pelletier, MD, and colleagues in the Journal of the American Medical Association describing a 45% reduction in pediatric hospital admissions in the first half of 2020. After all, when children (even more so than adults) are hospitalized, the reason is often related to some type of respiratory infection transmitted from human to human. Examples include influenza, which can lead to pneumonia…
