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A pediatric infectious disease expert has urged school districts statewide to adopt mandatory masking policies to help fight the wave of delta-variant COVID cases filling Alabama hospital beds.
Dr David Kimberlin, co-director of the pediatric infectious disease division at UAB’s medical school, said the variant can cause serious illness in children, although many have mild symptoms.
According to the most recent CDC figures, 39 of the 1,937 patients hospitalized in Alabama on Aug. 7 were children. A spokesperson for Children’s of Alabama said the hospital currently has 16 COVID-positive patients and five in intensive care.
“I am strident,” he said at Tuesday’s press conference. “I’m scared. I’m a lot more blunt in the way I say it. I’m a lot more passionate. And that’s because I see what’s coming. What hits us already and what is. about to absolutely crash and topple over. And we don’t have much time. And yet we, the collective community, seem to be arguing over things that we already know work. “
Kimberlin’s comments come as schools across the state return to classrooms and parents and school boards wage pitched battles over whether students should hide inside buildings. At least one-third of schools in Alabama require students and staff to wear masks. The rest of the districts have made masks optional.
The now dominant form of COVID-19 is much more transmissible than previous variants, Kimberlin said, just behind measles in terms of the ability to infect people who encounter the virus.
“I’m afraid right now of what to expect,” Kimberlin said. “It’s not the same virus in the behavior we got used to last year and in the horrible dark days of last winter. It’s even worse.”
The number of new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continues to rise statewide. As of Tuesday, 3,815 new cases were reported in the state. Hospitalizations are surpassing all-time highs last summer and quickly approaching numbers during the devastating wave of winter, Kimberlin said.
“This delta variant is a new entity for us,” Kimberlin said. “And our hospitals are filling up, not only on the pediatric side but even more on the adult side. And we all have to tie up here and we all have to do our part. I know we are tired. But we have to do it. Otherwise, this virus will be rampant among us. “
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Infectious Diseases Society of American all recommend masking to reduce transmission, especially in unvaccinated people. Kimberlin said he expects to see cases even in schools with mask warrants because the new variant is so heritable.
“This virus will do devastating damage to our children and our adults in Alabama,” Kimberlin said.
Because the virus passes more easily from person to person, more adults and unvaccinated children will fall ill before the outbreak is over, Kimberlin said. Vaccination will help more in the long term, but wearing masks could reduce the number more quickly, he said.
“We have to hide,” Kimberlin said. “We do. I’m sorry for that, I wish it wasn’t true. But we do. We’re going to sit and argue about all the lounge chairs on the sinking ship. what we were all drowning unless we got together and said okay i don’t like that but i’m going to put on the mask when i’m inside i don’t necessarily want the vaccine but I’m going to get it because I’m 12 or older, that’s what we have to do.
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