COVID Vaccines – Our Best Ally

 

The latest surge of COVID-19 that lasted much of the summer appears to be waning in recent weeks, although it’s important to point out that at least 75,000 Americans are still testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and more than 1,500 are dying every day. Eighteen months into the pandemic, in excess of 725,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19.

If there is good news to report about COVID-19 it’s that fewer cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have been reported in children compared to adults. But most pediatricians will tell you that although many of their patients remain asymptomatic after being exposed to the virus, plenty are symptomatic and testing positive for COVID-19, and some are requiring a visit to a local hospital emergency department or inpatient unit with more serious symptoms.

In children, the back-to-school surge remains strong, according to the CDC’s COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review (October 15), especially in children under 12 who are currently ineligible for a vaccination:

[R]ates of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations remain elevated in children ages 5–11 years and younger. Recent weekly rates of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations for these children are the highest they have ever been.

 

Rising in parallel with growing pediatric case numbers are cases of the rare-but-dangerous MIS-C, Jen Christensen reported last week:

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday it has seen a 12% increase in reports of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, since late August. Doctors at a handful of children’s hospitals around the country say they are still treating more MIS-C cases than they had been earlier in the year, even though MIS-C is considered rare.

“We had a nice long break from those cases over the summer and even into the fall where we could get an occasional MIS-C case here and there, but in the last three or four weeks, there has definitely been an uptick. And I would anticipate that to continue through the next several weeks,” said Dr. Amy Edwards, an infectious disease specialist at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.

 

Children with underlying medical conditions, including obesity, are at much higher risk of experiencing adverse outcomes due to COVID-19 compared to those without underlying conditions. But everyone — children and adults, people with mild symptoms and those with severe ones, the generally healthy or the chronically ill — is at risk for prolonged COVID symptoms persisting well after the infection has passed. Pediatrician Peter Rowe explains the phenomenon of post-acute, “long-haul COVID”:

No one is certain exactly how many people who’ve had COVID-19 end up being long haulers. One study showed that as many as 52% of teens and young adults between ages 16 and 30 may experience lingering symptoms 6 months after having COVID. The United Kingdom Office for National Statistics estimated that 12.9% of children 2 to 11 years of age and 14.5% of children 12 to 16 years of age still experienced symptoms 5 weeks after infection.

What experts do know is that long-haul COVID can happen even in people who had mild or no symptoms of COVID-19. The symptoms they experienced during the acute infection may not go away, even long after their infection is gone. Sometimes, long-haul COVID symptoms start after a person is feeling better. Or, if they were asymptomatic (didn’t have COVID symptoms), they may experience them weeks later.

 

Penn State researchers published a study last week analyzing data from around the world on long-haul symptoms. It turns out that getting sick with SARS-CoV-2 is nothing like having a cold or flu when symptoms resolve within a week or so, says Steve Marroni:

According to the findings, about 50% of those studied experienced several adverse health issues for six months after recovering from COVID-19. This includes:

• More than half of all patients reported weight loss, fatigue, fever or pain.

• Roughly one in five experienced a decrease in mobility.

• Nearly one in four experienced difficulty concentrating.

• Nearly one in three patients were diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorders.

• Six in 10 survivors had chest imaging abnormality and more than a quarter of patients had difficulty breathing.

• Chest pain and palpitations were among the commonly reported conditions.

• Nearly one in five patients experienced hair loss or rashes.

• Stomach pain, lack of appetite, diarrhea and vomiting were among the commonly reported conditions.

 

COVID vaccines may help prevent people with breakthrough infections from suffering long-haul symptoms:

Another study conducted in Israel on breakthrough cases among health-care workers shows among those who are vaccinated, the frequency of long-COVID is cut down from 50% to 19%.

“That would imply that vaccinations would cut down on the probability of long-COVID by over half,” he said. “The best ally we have now is the vaccine.”

 

Yes, the vaccine is our best ally. It always has been.

 

(Google Images)

 

source http://www.thepediablog.com/2021/10/21/covid-vaccines-our-best-ally/