The child became seriously ill with Covid just as the hospitals ran out of beds

A one-year-old girl became seriously ill with the coronavirus just at the same time her local hospitals were overwhelmed by the disease. Alice Pate began choking as she struggled to breathe, and experienced a 101f fever as her oxygen levels began to drop.

She was taken to Stillwater Medical Center near her home in Perkins, Oklahoma on Monday and tested positive. But the staff was unable to offer the child a bed.

Her mother Beth Pate, who tested positive for Covid several weeks before Alice, said: “ I thought she was choking at breakfast, but it was a bad cough. He was trying to choke and he was trying to breathe.

“They had stations in the corridors. They had patients in the curtained corridors trying to have privacy. It’s like they’re playing Tetris with hospital equipment. ”

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Stillwater Medical Center spokeswoman Shyla Eggers said staff had been planning a spate of the virus for months, but said they were still shocked by the sudden increase in cases, adding, “Now we’re afraid.”

Staff managed to find a bed for Alice, 50 miles away, at Oklahoma University Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City.

Stillwater Medical Center is still completely full for three days, with staff forced to convert offices to wards to try and treat patients, KFOR reported.

Despite her fear of breath, Alice was able to overcome her Covid symptoms and has tested negative ever since.

Beth Pate says Alice’s scare has made her much more nervous about Covid. It is so rare to see masks in Perkins.

“In a grocery store or restaurant, there aren’t any. They think they won’t understand it. ‘Oklahoma has seen 161,000 Covid cases and just over 1,500 deaths.

The United States recorded a total of 11.6 million cases and nearly 251,000 deaths.

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