MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Keeping up to date with local Covid-19 numbers, WREG’s Joneé Lewis spoke with Dr. Sandra Arnold, Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.
The number of children being tested, and the number testing positive have gone up since this time last month.
7 positive COVID cases as of yesterday were identified in children of unspecified ages. The rise in positive cases is a cause for concern among local doctors.
“There’s a concern we’re going to see more and more cases.” Dr. Arnold says, “This is what’s being seen at hospital in this region that we’ve already heard about.”
As a result, LeBonheur is taking extra precautions. “We’re working on figuring out how to go back to the way we were before things got a lot better,” Dr. Arnold tells us.
When asked about the potential reopening of the children’s Covid-19 ward, Dr. Arnold pointed out that the area is easily repurposed.
“The beds are the same. We never really took down the unit per say in the sense that we have changed the ventilation in large set of rooms. The machinery for that just gets switched back on basically.”
Noting the rapid increase in cases over the last month, Dr. Arnold spoke to WREG about schools and overall concerns things will get worse for kids in places like Mississippi and Arkansas.
Dr. Arnold followed that up with, “It’s not difficult. We didn’t dismantle everything. I don’t think that anybody here thought that this was over. So, unfortunately yes we’re going back to the way things were.”