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The Delta variant of the coronavirus has been found to be more contagious than previous versions, especially for the unvaccinated, and this creates a level of risk for children that did not occur in 2020.
“Children are hospitalized at higher rates than ever before,” Board-certified physician Dr. Mona Amin told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “And yes, we see that most of the children in hospital are children of unvaccinated parents. But as this Delta variant increases, we are also seeing children of vaccinated parents being admitted to hospitalization for COVID. “
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, there were more than 180,000 new confirmed cases in American children during the week ending August 19, with more than four times as many cases in the past month. Overall, children now represent 22.4% of reported weekly cases.
“We’re actually in the second biggest wave for kids,” Amid said. “Last week 180,000 children tested positive. The highest we have ever seen for children was 211,000. It was in January. This Delta variant is therefore a game-changer.
Asked what parents can do in the midst of increased transmission, Amin explained that “we are doing our best with reducing the risks, with the masking, with the vaccination, with maybe weighing the benefits against the risks. with every social experience we take our unvaccinated children into. “
Two “sure-fire” ways to help your children
Only children 12 and older are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. This still leaves millions of children vulnerable to the virus.
“I am a pediatrician,” said Dr Amin. “I am also the mother of a 20 month old toddler [and] in daycare. So we live COVID, breathe COVID. It’s a tough time for parents, one, because we’re at 18 months and thought we might be on a climb.
As a mother, Amin said she sympathizes with other parents who are concerned about how to protect their unvaccinated children.
“Some of the most important things we can do to protect our children are things we should have done, namely, immunize anyone who qualifies and hide anyone who may be masked,” she said. “These are two surefire ways to help protect our children who are too young to mask themselves or perhaps too young to get vaccinated.”
Currently, 60.4% of people aged 12 and over in America are fully vaccinated, while 71.2% have received at least one dose.
“We know that it’s really almost impossible to completely avoid a virus,” Amin said. “It’s invisible. We cannot do it completely. We are therefore talking about risk reduction. It means: with whom do we surround our children? What is your comfort level?
Some parents have floated the idea of holding “chickenpox-like parties” where parents gather their children together to expose them to the virus in the hope of building immunity. The problem with this, however, is that it is still not clear who is considered to be at high risk for hospitalization.
“With chickenpox-type parties, the risk is that you won’t know if your child is going to be hospitalized,” Amin said. “You don’t know if your child is going to have a complication from COVID because it is a new virus. So we really want to focus on reducing risk, and that means doing what we can under our control. “
For Amin and her husband, this means taking a look at their environment.
“We are really looking: what can we do? Who do we surround ourselves with? said Amine. “In terms of playing dates, maybe do something outside. It is the best thing we can do for our children who are not vaccinated.
She stressed that this does not automatically mean that parents should keep their children at home, but be aware of the potential risks.
“Are they distancing?” Amine said. “Put your child in a mask. If your child is at high risk for complications, possibly asthma, or talk to your child’s clinician if you are not sure, maybe consider home schooling or distance learning until it requires a mask or until Delta settles in for a bit.
And while the death rate from COVID-19 in children is extremely low, that is not what concerns Amin and the other doctors the most.
“It is also about hospitalizations, of children withdrawn from school because they contract COVID,” Amin said. “They’re hospitalized, hospital bills, everything that just got hospitalized as a kid that we’re trying to avoid. We know that we cannot completely avoid this. We know it with the flu. We know it with [Respiratory Syncytial Virus]. “
At the same time, she stressed, “we have a vaccine. We have masking protocols that can really help reduce the risk. We don’t know what the next few months will look like. with unvaccinated individuals. We’re still learning a lot about the drivetrain because Delta is changing the ball game a bit. It is highly transmissible compared to the original strain. “
Adriana Belmonte is a journalist and health policy and policy editor for Yahoo Finance. You can follow her on Twitter @adrianambells and contact her at [email protected].
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