The post below is a UMC press release authored by Annie Oeth.
Editor's note: As of 9 a.m. Friday, the number of children hospitalized at Children's of Mississippi for confirmed or suspected cases is 30, a hospital record.
JACKSON, Miss. – In the 2020 version of COVID-19, most children infected did not show symptoms that developed into serious health conditions. That’s not the case today, as nationally and in Mississippi, the Delta variant of COVID-19 is driving up the number of children hospitalized at Children’s of Mississippi.
On Monday, 22 children were hospitalized in Children’s of Mississippi due to COVID-19, including three children in intensive care. Inside the state’s only children’s hospital, the beds are full.
“The pediatric COVID-19 cases are going up, but the other cases we traditionally see aren’t stopping,” said Dr. Jennifer Hong, associate chief medical officer for Children’s of Mississippi. “The RSV cases keep coming. We are still seeing traumas – like car wrecks and gunshot wounds, sepsis, cancer, and heart failure. Those haven’t stopped. It’s unrelenting.”
Just as in the adult hospital at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Children’s of Mississippi is also under stress as medical teams work to care for large numbers of children infected with respiratory viruses and a rising number of children with COVID-19.
“We’re now seeing new COVID-19 admissions who are otherwise healthy children,” said Dr. Mary Taylor, Suzan B. Thames Chair, professor and chair of pediatrics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Patients like Keelyn Green, 16, a senior at Jim Hill High, have faced life-threatening illness after being infected with COVID-19. After first experiencing symptoms Aug. 4, Green came to the Pediatric Emergency Department at Children’s of Mississippi Aug. 7 with problems breathing.
“I was scared for him,” said his mother, LaKeitta Brown. “He had double pneumonia. His oxygenation was low, and his heart rate was elevated. His liver and kidneys were being affected.”
He went to the pediatric intensive care unit, moving to a hospital room in a medical-surgical unit Thursday. Dr. Laura Wright-Sexton treated him there four days for acute hypoxic respiratory failure and bacterial and COVID pneumonia.
Green and his extended family were unvaccinated, choosing instead to be careful and wear masks, Brown said. “Keelyn had been inside most of the summer, but he was exposed to COVID from a family member who didn’t know he had been near someone with COVID. Everyone in the family got it but his uncle, and he was vaccinated.”
Keelyn and his family plan to get vaccinated soon.
While Keelyn was healthy prior to his COVID-19 infection, “some of our patients with COVID-19 have other conditions, and some have COVID-19 plus RSV,” Taylor said. “Many are here with just COVID.”
RSV, or Respiratory Syncytial Virus, brings on cold-like symptoms and can cause serious illness in young children as well as in older adults. A common virus spread via respiratory droplets when a person coughs or sneezes, RSV is the most common cause of pneumonia and bronchiolitis in children younger than 1.
Usually, RSV is seen in winter months, but this year, the virus surged among children in the summer.
“The things people can do to protect themselves and their families from COVID-19 also work to protect against RSV and other viruses,” Taylor said. “Wearing face masks, good hand hygiene and social distancing protects everyone.”
Children’s of Mississippi Chief Nursing and Clinical Services Officer Ellen Hansen said availability of beds in the state’s only children’s hospital fluctuates.
“Sometimes we have beds and children are admitted right away,” Hansen said, “and other times, they may wait in the Pediatric Emergency Department for a bed to open for a few to many hours.”
While hospital staff are exhausted, they’ve been rising to the challenge, she said. “Staff are tired, as we all are, with the constant changes and unknown. However, we remain focused on providing excellent care to the children and families we serve.”
Hansen said parents should still seek medical help for their children when needed. “When people avoid care, children get sicker or we have delayed diagnoses, both of which could be fatal.”
Dr. April Palmer, chief of pediatric infectious diseases, said most children with COVID-19 are being hospitalized for either pneumonia, an infection that inflames the lungs’ air sacs, making breathing difficult, or MIS-C, or Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, a severe inflammatory reaction throughout a child’s body that occurs about four weeks after a COVID-19 infection.
Both situations can be life-threatening, Palmer said. “This is why, in school, we strongly recommend vaccination for those who qualify and universal masking.”
Dr. Roberto Santos, professor of pediatric infectious diseases, agrees. “We need to let the families know that we really don’t know the long-term effects of COVID-19 in children, and we are seeing those long-term effects already in adult patients.”
Because fewer children were seriously ill with COVID-19 during the pandemic’s earlier surges, there is less data available on best treatments, said Dr. Charlotte Hobbs, stressing that protecting children who are not eligible to be vaccinated is essential. “Plus, we have few treatment options for prevention of progression to severe disease or treatment – especially in younger children – as compared with adults.”
Emergency use authorization of some treatments used successfully on adults does not apply to children younger than 12, she said.
If more Mississippians were vaccinated against COVID-19, fewer children would be in the hospital with it, Taylor said. Though the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine can’t be given to children younger than 12, adult vaccinations reduce the chances children will contract the virus.
“Those who are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccination should do it,” she said. “We have an increasing number of children who are needing hospitalization for COVID-19. Adults should get vaccinated to protect those who are not eligible to be vaccinated.”
35 comments:
Congrats to the vaccinated people! Your mRNA manipulated bodies have now become variant factories! Good job!
No congrats to the idiot at 1:51. Obviously either has a reading problem or a comprehension problem.
Read above - the kid who is in the hospital with serious COVID issues wasn't, nor was his family, vaccinated. The only person in his family that didn't get COVID was his uncle - who was.
Yes, vaccinations manipulate the body. Just like the smallpox, or the polio,or the measels, mumps and pneumonia vaccinations do.
That's what science has given us over the past century that has allowed lifespans to damn near double during that time.
But thankfully people with your obvious IQ deficiency will likely die out during this pandemic and maybe improve the gene pool with your manipulated brain cells.
thanks, 1:51. i really like being magnetized and this newly grown tail looks great when i flop it around.
Thank you for sharing so we can help save innocent children and lives! God Bless us All
Thank you Coach Sanders for promoting vaccine!
The vaccinated are free to spread the virus symptom free. They're the super spreaders who have fueled the rise of the delta variant.
Its next to impossible to get all the vitamins and minerals one needs for optimal health from diet alone. All of us, and especially our kiddos, many too young to be vaccinated, need to try to make sure the ole immune system is hittin' on all cylinders. Cant we at least pass out a C, D3, Quercetin and zinc containing supplement and a multivitamin at lunch? And no, I dont sell dietary supplements..veterinary supplies, biological products, vaccines or other pharmaceuticals, nor do I give medical advice.
My GOD won’t somebody think of the CHILDREN?!
How many children (under the age of 18) in the state?
30 : that # = ?
So when are the next round of stimulus checks coming? Vaccines don’t pay the bills.
Media, social rumor sites, financially benefitting health hustlers and political fear mongers are no kind of resource for vaccination, masking, social separating and hermitting decisions: one's doctor is.
If you have avoided the virus thus far, you're doing something right.
Cultivate a respectful relationship with one or more docs and you will avoid the virus or beat it back successfully with minimal symptoms.
1:51 the first poster most likely had it gave to someone close to the family and then to this child and how many more?
Today my son who had his first shot headed for his second now has Covid-19 and is sick like never before. He got it from a co worked who decided to come to work with all the traits but told no one. Now my daughter in law and their 12 year old daughter have it. It only take on numb nut like 1:51 to sicken us all. Problem is as it spreads numb nuts rule right now.
@2:11, Apparently it’s YOU that has the comprehension problem. My statement was that the new SuperCovaids is YOUR fault. The strain that affects children more exists because, during the middle of a pandemic that was rapidly burning itself out, you people chose to get a frankenvaccine that literally causes the virus to adapt to survive.
Read the press release carefully. Hpw many children have just Covid, how many many have Covid plus RSV, how many have bacterial and Covid infections (See the case outlined in the press release) and how many have other conditions that may modify their reactions to a Covid infection? It's important and may modify your impressions of the dangers of Covid in chilodren and the extent of the viral spread. Words like "many" don't count.
Cletus at 4:59, the Delta variant came from India, from one of the 271 Million there who got Covid. Variants DON'T come from vaccines. It's physically impossible.
It comes from a live virus, like the one you celebrate spreading, killing the elderly and now the young.
That's YOUR fault as an antivaxxer fool.
Try science. Well, start with reading, then writing, then arithmetic.
Then, when science is hard, like you trying to play baseball, get MeeMaw to take you off the field for some chicken nuggets and a Limmernade to cool off, and let the grownups do science.
Who is spreading it?
MSN Link
no 4:59 - I totally understood your stupid, ridiculous statement.
I'm sure that your medical degree came from SMU studies (social media university) and therefore cannot be challenged. But both your concepts are baseless - that the pandemic was "rapidly burning itself out" and that the vaccine (which you have nicknamed based again on your medical science education) has caused it to survive.
Idiot.
4:59pm you have it exactly backwards.
It’s the unvaccinated who acted as petrie dishes for Delta. Sadly, you let it grow stronger so it can breakthrough the vaccinated and mostly because their protection was waning . That’s why a booster is needed . Most viral vaccinations don’t last forever - just through flu season.
And there’s that it’s not the vaccinated getting severely ill.
2:57 pm The vaccinated didn’t go maskless except around the vaccinated. Now we wear N95 or KN95 masks around everyone except in our homes with our families . If we have to be indoors with others, we add distancing. It’s called being a responsible citizen.
We have many more kids than 30.
Sorry they died or got sick it’s just a cold.
Pussies gonna puss.
Dead babies to the front
8/22 Bloomberg "The Vaccinated Are Worried and Scientists Dont Have Answers", 8/20 Reuters "U.S. Officials Reviewing if Moderna Shot Tied to Higher Heart Inflammation Risk - Washington Post". Proceed with caution, especially with the children.
Ah, fear porn. People die all day, everyday from fetuses to senior citizens. I guess people need a hobby or something to keep themselves worried.
Heres hoping for an “idiot” variant that only affects the unvaccinated and is 100% fatal.
We don't care about your snot nose brat kids.
@7:51..cant you hear Greta "How dare you! How dare you, you liberal rags, youre supposed to be on OUR side"
@7:04
How does a virus become resistant to a vaccine in the unvaxxed?
The truth is this manmade virus is being used to convince the population to get the vaxx which in turn will cause future dependence on immunity drugs because the vaccine is wrecking your immune system by design. And you won’t believe it until Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells you because you have been conditioned to never think for yourself.
Please stop these Children who are sick or died were innocent victims. Your mamas told you If you cannot sat something Nice; then don’t say anything at all still applies! With our people in Afghanistan many of these soldiers kids may be in MS schools don’t need all of this hate added to their stress when they come home to hopefully see their families again. Can’t we just love one another & agree to disagree while keeping a close eye on our children!
The CDC said asymptomatic transmission was extremely rare.......how again are the unvaccinated spreading it (assuming they’re aren’t actively having symptoms?)
Let me see if I can dumb this down so that boomers who are former JPS students can understand it
1: The unvaccinated can obviously get and spread the virus
2: The vaccinated can get an spread the virus, according to the CDC and Pfizer/Moderna et al, the only difference is it reduces symptoms
3: If unvaccinated AND vaccinated can get and spread the virus, why are you only blaming unvaccinated people?
6:59 You are completely wrong with assertion 2. Vaccines don’t just reduce symptoms, they reduce transmission greatly as well. By 71% according to this article. That is significant and is why everyone needs to get vaccinated, so there can be substantially less people who are infectious passing it on to others. This really is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Now go back to your nonstop Fox News binging.
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/08/study-ties-covid-vaccines-lower-transmission-rates
@8:18, Fox news pushes the vaccine, you had a good argument until you started with the ad hominem
@8:43am - But ad hominems are fun and make me feel good.
Careful there @10:15, the dogs of karma will hunt you down.
8/23 Microsoft News "So who are these fully vaccinated patients who are being hospitalized?....they received two doses of [the newly FDA-approved] Pfizer vaccine five months ago". Well isnt this just 'effin lovely?
@8:43 8:18 here, and 9:51 is not me.
For what it's worth, I was just responding in kind to 6:59's attack on JPS Boomers. I'm assuming they are a Millennial since anyone with any experience behind them would know Boomers graduated high school between 1964 and 1982, a time when Jackson was still respectable and had a quality educational system.
Pretty sad that the vaxxed don't see themselves as spreaders with the truth square in their face. Public school science dropped the ball and stole common sense from 100 million. It's a man made out of control virus that nothing touches ! RSV is also going around, even adults are getting it.
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