Pittsburgh Hospital Sees 300 Patients With Swine Flu Symptoms In One Day

Local hospital emergency rooms have been filling up with potential swine flu patients.

Channel 11 visited Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. The hospital saw almost 300 patients Monday with swine flu symptoms.

Christina Legler was with her daughter at the hospital. "I don't send them to day care because I’m afraid of diseases and especially the swine flu," said Legler.

300 Patients At Children's With Symptoms Monday

Knowing that President Barack Obama has declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency just fuels her fears. “I’m scared it’s going to affect everybody," Legler.

Doctors at Children’s Hospital said the national emergency won’t change their operations.

"It’s business as usual. There may be more resources available down the line, but as far as what we are doing day to day, it hasn't changed a bit," said Richard Saladino of Children’s. Those resources being it could allow hospitals in danger of being overwhelmed with swine flu patients to execute disaster operation plans that include transferring patients off site to satellite facilities or other hospitals.

But, for those dealing with it right now hope it doesn’t get any worse.

"There is no doubt when people hear of a national emergency that they may become more worried. But, the bottom line is day to day is that this a mild to moderate illness and kids are doing quite fine with it," said Saladino.

“Hopefully, it just goes away,” said Legler.

Meanwhile on Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the swine flu vaccine "is coming out the door as fast as it comes off the production line." But at the same time, she acknowledged delays in getting a sufficient supply for all those demanding it.

"We were relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy," Sebelius said in one interview. "We do have a vaccine that works," she said. Sebelius said the immune response is working faster than officials anticipated.

Appearing Monday morning on nationally broadcast news shows, she said officials now have a supply of about 16.5 million doses of the vaccine, while conceding that's millions of doses below the amount needed.

Sebelius said she couldn't predict just how widespread the virus will be. Roughly 1,000 people have died from it so far in the United States. But she also said officials do not believe there is yet any cause to close down schools and cease other daily activities.

Obama declared a health emergency over the weekend to give hospitals and health professionals more leeway from federal regulations to respond to the illness. And on Sunday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Congress would be happy to provide additional support and money on a bipartisan basis, if the need arises.