Three children with COVID on ventilators at MUSC

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Officials with the Medical University of South Carolina said they currently have 12 children hospitalized with COVID in their facilities, with three of those children in the ICU and on ventilators.

In total, there are 35 kids hospitalized with COVID in the state and eight in critical care.

“These numbers are quite significant,” MUSC Pediatrician Dr. Elizabeth Mack said. “[It’s] important to remember this is on top of usual pediatric illnesses and injuries we see, everything from pneumonia to cancer to trauma.”

Dr. Mack also said she is seeing an increase in viruses that typically spread in the winter, which was already filling up children’s hospitals across the country.

She explained a ventilator is a form of life support, so any child on one is considered critically ill.

“Some will survive, some will not,” she explained.

Her message to the public as three kids are using a ventilator is blunt, “one sick child is too many.”