With some Weld County schools switching to remote learning within the last week, local pediatricians have concerns about COVID-19, the omicron variant and public management of the diseases caused by coronavirus.
Parents and families can and should take precautions to prevent children from severe illness and hospitalization, according to Dr. Brian Money, a Banner Health pediatric hospitalist at North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley.
Money and UCHealth colleague Dr. Amy Driscoll recommend masks for children in schools and vaccines for all who are eligible. Currently, COVID-19 vaccines are available for everyone 5 and older.
About 63% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. This includes about 54% of 12- to 17-year-olds and 18% of those 5-11. In Colorado, 67.2% of all age groups are fully vaccinated. Data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment also says 26.5% of children 5-11 are fully vaccinated and 59.5% of those 12-17 are fully vaccinated.
In Weld County, 15% of 5- to 11-year-olds are fully vaccinated. The percentage more than triples to 50% for 12-17 who are fully vaccinated, according to county data. Nearly 60% of all Weld County residents are fully vaccinated.
Money said data he’s seen on COVID-19 and its variants indicates children are not as severely impacted by omicron as with delta. But omicron is leading to more sickness overall.
Weld County reports the seven-day rolling average for the daily number of COVID-19 cases reported among residents ages 0-19 is 169.7. That average peaked Tuesday when it hit 215.7. Prior to the surge of cases over the past month, the highest that average had reached was 59, on Nov. 20, 2020.
“With kids, this variant (omicron) is causing more hospitalizations, and we’re sending sicker kids to Denver,” Money added, referring to Children’s Hospital Colorado in the Anschutz Medical Campus. “On the whole, because so many people are infected, it’s (omicron) causing more hospitalizations. It’s such an infectious variant and the positivity is so high that more are coming to the hospital.”
As a pediatric hospitalist, Money works and practices solely in a hospital while in communication with other pediatricians who might be in a clinic. Money sees children in a hospital and their care is returned to clinicians upon discharge.
Banner Health spokesperson Sara Quale said Friday that North Colorado Medical Center has had 17 pediatric admissions for COVID-19 since Nov. 1. That’s nearly 45% of total pediatric COVID admissions since March 2020 with the other 21 being admitted through Oct. 31, 2021.
Money said in his experience “it’s near 100% of unvaccinated kids who are having problems” with COVID-19. He said that since September when vaccines were made available for children ages 5-11, he’s seen a surge of delta cases.
“Even the teens who’ve had trouble are the ones who are unvaccinated,” Money added.
Greeley-Evans School District 6 has seven schools on remote learning through Friday, according to a Jan. 19 update on the district website: Meeker Elementary, Shawsheen Elementary, Jefferson High, Bella Romero Academy K-3 & 4-8, Greeley Central High, Jefferson Junior High and University High, a public charter.
The schools are all scheduled to return to in-person learning Monday.
University’s eighth grade switched to remote learning as of Thursday, and will continue through Jan. 28 with an expected return to in-person learning Jan. 31, according to an update on the school website. The school announcement says there are multiple eighth-grade classrooms with five or more students who’ve been diagnosed with COVID-19.
Extracurricular activities will continue as scheduled. Administrators and main office staff will remain in the building and are available to assist families. Teachers will work remotely and in the building.
Platteville Elementary School had seven student cases in an outbreak reported Jan. 13, according to information from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Driscoll, a Greeley-based pediatrician, said she listened to a Children’s Hospital Colorado town hall recently and heard the institution has the highest number of pediatric admissions between ICU and regular wards than at any point during COVID-19. Driscoll said she’s referred a few kids for hospitalization and generally, it’s children 5 and younger who are becoming ill.
Money said without specific numbers he knows pediatric admissions are high at NCMC and the number of transfers for severity of illness are also high at this stage of the pandemic.
Driscoll added that omicron is the only variant she’s seeing in children right now.
“For most kids, it’s still mild, but the problem is you never know which kids will be the ones to end up in the pediatric ICU,” Driscoll said.
Driscoll also said doctors and scientists continue to learn about the long-term impacts of COVID-19 in children. The American Academy of Pediatrics reported this month about a study that shows children under 18 were at greater risk of being diagnosed with diabetes more than 30 days after a COVID-19 infection than those who weren’t infected.
Valley High School, in Gilcrest and the Weld RE-1 School District, went to remote learning Jan. 13-14 because of the number of staff affected by illness. Valley principal Rich Dalgliesh said the school returned to in-person learning Tuesday as expected.
In early January, the Weld RE-4 School District Board of Education voted to move Windsor and Severance schools to a recommended, but not required, mask policy. A modification of the new policy says if a school or district building reaches a 5% positivity rate of staff and students with COVID-19, the building will go to masks for five calendar days or until the case rate drops below 5%
The positivity rate of COVID-19 was 28.69% in school district boundaries from Jan. 4-17, according to the district website. Weld County had a 29.95% positivity rate as of Jan. 18, also according to Weld RE-4.
There have been 806 cases of COVID-19 this school year in the district, including 282 this month — the highest one-month total dating to October 2020.
“I don’t agree with taking down mask mandates,” Money said. “It’s pretty much kept kids in school. When delta rolled out, schools without mask mandates had higher numbers. It’s not only going to affect children, it affects educators.”
"severe" - Google News
January 22, 2022 at 10:00PM
https://ift.tt/3GNHCnf
Local pediatricians: Masks and vaccines protect from severe COVID-19 - Greeley Tribune
"severe" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2OrY17E
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Local pediatricians: Masks and vaccines protect from severe COVID-19 - Greeley Tribune"
Post a Comment