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good morning, everyone. it is saturday, october 22. i m amara walker. i m boris sanchez. you are live in the cnn newsroom. we are grateful you are starting your weekend with us. there is a growing health concern this morning for parents of young children as cases of a common respiratory virus known as rsv are surging across the country. listen to this. 74% of u.s. pediatric hospital beds are currently in use with capacity filling up faster than at any other point in the last two years of the coronavirus pandemic. cases are rising fast. during the first week of october, more than 4,400 rsv infections were detected by pcr tests, more than triple the levels were just two months ago, and some states are already in crisis mode. illinois only has 6% of pediatric icu beds left, and space is running out so fast at the connecticut children s hospital that they have had to treat patients in the hallway and in the play rooms. cnn s brian todd has more. the drive to the emerg ....
Attention quickly. reporter: there is no vaccine and no specific remedy, but severe cases can be treated it in a hospital with fluids, oxygen or a ventilator and icepacks to bring down the fever. i don t know how but she slept with the icepacks on top of her. reporter: 4-month-old lindy was taken to cook hospital in houston. running a significant fever, not eating as much. reporter: to avoid rsv, doctors say clean surfaces in your home, have kids wash hands, cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing, don t share toys and cups and avoid close contact like kissing or cuddling. for cases that don t require hospitalization, give tie ylenor motrin if they have a fever. day five is the peak of symptoms. then their symptoms resolve and they get better. reporter: she says what worries her about this uptick in rsv cases is unlike previous years when the virus was seasonal and predictable, this time she says it has the ....