The Delta variant is pushing pediatric hospitals to the brink

UG. 20 WAS A GOOD DAY IN THE pediatric intensive-care unit at Children’s Hospital New Orleans (CHNO). Carvase Perrilloux Jr., a 2-month-old who’d come in about a week earlier with respiratory syncytial virus and COVID-19, was ready to breathe without the ventilator keeping his tiny body alive. “You did it!” nurses cooed as they removed the tube from his airway and he took his first solo gasp, bare toes kicking. On the floor below, Quintetta Edwards was preparing for her 17-year-old son, Nelson Alexis III, to be discharged after more than two weeks in the hospital with COVID-19—first in the ICU, then in acute care. “Fortunately, he never regressed,” Edwards said, standing outside Nelson’s room, the door marked with signs warning of potential COVID-19 exposure. “He’s progressing, slowly but surely.”