Around the country, hospitals are being inundated with pediatric patients sick with respiratory illnesses filling up to 71% of the estimated 40,000 available hospital beds, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports."[Various respiratory] viruses are all in play on top of SARS-CoV-2, and now the increasing amounts of influenza, which we had feared was coming in like a lion this year, has arrived," Dr. Charlotte Hobbs, professor of pediatric infectious disease and microbiology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), Children's of Mississippi, told ABC News.Normally, the peak happens in February, but we went into October already seeing increases in influenza activity," Brammer said.Puerto Rico, Louisiana, and Alabama joined New York, Washington, D.C., Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina in reporting high levels of flu-like illness last week, according to the CDC."CDC is following our surveillance data so that we can keep people informed about influenza activity, promoting [the] influenza vaccine, and letting people know that this is the time of year to go ahead and get your flu vaccine," Brammer said."