Last night, Brandon Waltman arrived at the neonatal intensive care unit at the University of South Alabama Children’s and Women’s Hospital right after shift change to find that his daughter, Emmarie Grace, had been moved.

The nurse in charge told him his little girl had been moved and isolated. Another nurse on the unit had tested positive for COVID-19. Every baby she had cared for would be isolated and tested as a precaution.

It was the nightmare scenario Waltman had worried about since his newborn arrived at the University of South Alabama Medical Center two weeks earlier. The little girl hadn’t been eating, and now all of a sudden they learned she might have been exposed to a deadly virus. Waltman said his daughter already had a private room at USA and doesn’t seem to be showing any symptoms of COVID-19.

“I don’t really think she’s been infected, but I do think they should have been a little more proactive,” Waltman said.

Born on Feb. 20, Emmarie Grace seemed healthy but refused to eat. After almost a week at home, she was readmitted to a nearby hospital in Mississippi and then transferred to USA – which is better equipped to handle medically-complex children.

Doctors have been running every test in the book to find out what’s wrong. As the baby still struggled to eat, the news about coronavirus grew bleaker.

“We thought it couldn’t get much worse,” Waltman said. “But now it’s just like everything is piling on.”

Although young children appear to be more resistant to coronavirus than older patients, the prospect of an outbreak in the NICU is frightening. The unit at USA provides care for babies born very prematurely and those who require ventilators. Even minor respiratory illnesses can quickly become life-threatening for these tiny patients.

Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said yesterday the youngest patient in Alabama diagnosed with COVID-19 was 2 years old. Since the virus is still so new, doctors don’t fully understand how it affects babies and children, but deaths among the very young appear to be rare. A report issued last week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found no deaths in people younger than 20 in the first 4,000 U.S. cases.

Still, Waltman said he hoped the hospital would take stronger action to control the potential spread. The hospital limited visits to parents, but he said no one checked him or his wife Joanna Waltman for symptoms when they came to visit Emmarie.

Also, they created a policy to limit visits to one parent at a time. That left the other parent wandering the streets, and potentially interacting with infected people, while waiting for his turn.

“What’s the other parent supposed to do?” Waltman said. “It just makes more sense for both of us to be isolated in her room.”

Only three cases of COVID-19 have been detected in Mobile, out of 215 statewide. Testing has been slower to ramp up in south Alabama. Gary Mans, associate vice president of marketing and communications for USA Health acknowledged that an employee tested positive, but did not identify the department where they worked.

“A USA Health employee has tested positive for COVID-19," Mans said. "USA Health continues to implement all state and national guidelines to ensure we protect our patients, providers and staff.”

His daughter recently had surgery to insert a feeding tube so the family can return home to Mississippi and quarantine together at home.

“We love our little girl and want to make sure she is as healthy and happy as possible,” Waltman said.