Maine’s hospitals are seeing a surge in a common pediatric respiratory virus, with many already at capacity with hospitalized children, according to doctors from MaineHealth and Northern Light Health.

“Our inpatient and outpatient capacity is stretched to the max, especially our nursing capacity,” said Dr. Mary Ottolini, the George W. Hallett Chair of Pediatrics at The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Respiratory Syncytial Virus is common among children and emerges every year alongside the common cold. RSV has similar symptoms in most cases to the common cold. In some cases among infants, toddlers and older children, symptoms can be more severe.

Last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found an increase in emergency room visits associated with RSV across the U.S., with some areas “nearing seasonal peak levels,” according to the CDC website.

Ottolini said on Friday that the children’s hospital saw more than twice the number of patients In October 2022 that the hospital sees in that month in a typical year, and has seen a record number of RSV patients.

Dr. Dora Anne Mills, chief health improvement officer at MaineHealth, said of the 87 pediatric beds at Maine Medical Center, all are full, most of them with RSV patients, and some patients are being boarded in the center’s emergency room while they await beds.

At Northern Light’s Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, there are 59 pediatric beds, with staffing only available for 37 and, according to Dr. Jonathan Wood, pediatric intensivist at the center, “They are virtually full.”

Wood said RSV typically peaks in mid-January, when hospitals might expect to see such high numbers, and he could not say whether the surge now means the number of RSV cases will be declining by midwinter or be even worse.

“I think that the way we’re approaching this is prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” he said.

Mills said she believed the surge now was due to the overwhelming presence of COVID-19 being more dominant.

“We didn’t see other viruses, other respiratory viruses nearly as much the last two and a half to three years, so it seemed like the COVID virus kind of crowded out the other viruses,” she said.

White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha told Spectrum News last week that vaccinations against COVID and influenza will help reduce the burden on hospitals this winter, and on Friday Dr. John Jarvis, Northern Light Health System’s COVID-19 response leader, emphasized the value of vaccinations. 

“We cannot have an issue where we are seeing so many patients with influenza and COVID being admitted to our hospitals that we can’t care for our most vulnerable children who are infected with RSV or other respiratory viruses,” he said. “We need to keep our emergency rooms open for emergencies, and we need to keep our hospital beds open for those who are in need.”