San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
More kids hospitalized for COVID as masks tossed, vaccination rates lag
HOUSTON — Aidan Edwards’ bags were packed days in advance for Disney World — his first big vacation since the pandemic started.
The Edwards family left for Orlando last week, but that’s not the only exciting new development in the 14-year-old’s life.
On Tuesday morning, Aidan received his second Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine dose at Texas Children’s Hospital. He is the last one of his immediate family to be vaccinated, after his siblings who are 17, 18 and 20 years old.
Since the Food and Drug Administration approved emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds on May 10, more than 300,000 Texas adolescents and teenagers have received at least one dose. Girls in this age range are receiving the vaccine at a higher rate (153,000) than boys (149,000), according to Texas Health and Human Services. Nationwide, more than 626,000 12- to 15-year-olds have received two doses, according to the CDC.
Though young people can now receive shots, the number of children and adolescents being hospitalized is increasing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data from the first half of 2021 that shows nearly onethird of adolescents who are hospitalized with COVID-19 require intensive care. Five percent of those patients need to be put on ventilators with supplemental oxygen, as well.
The CDC reports that nearly 400 children and adolescents are currently in hospitals across the country with COVID-19 or complications from the virus. More than
16,000 under the age of 18 have been hospitalized from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, and more than 300 of them have died from it, said Dr. Jim Versalovic, interim pediatricianin-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital.
He attributes the increase to fewer masks and stagnating vaccination rates.
More than half of all Texans are vaccinated with at least one dose.
In the last month, fewer people are masking up in public outdoors and indoors after the CDC said it was safe for vaccinated people to go maskless.
Aidan’s father, Willie Edwards, contracted the virus in late 2020 and passed it to his wife. Before that experience, he said he wasn’t interested in receiving any new vaccine.
Months later, he has three inhalers for longterm breathing issues and brain fog.
“My biggest concern was making sure that they don’t go through the same, especially being so young,” Edwards said. “I was a healthy individual, a runner, and I didn’t want him being so active and young, and then he develops any kind of lung issues. Anything I could do to ensure that they don’t get hit and have the same symptoms I have had.”
Versalovic said about 10 percent of children diagnosed with the virus at his hospital require hospitalization. This rate is nearly three times greater than the seasonal flu, which the CDC reported killed nearly 600 children between 2017 and 2018.
“This is a huge setback for a child or adolescent with time spent out of school or activities,” Versalovic said. “There’s a long recovery time even if the infection is mild initially.”
Child survivors sometimes have a whole new set of problems when the initial infection clears. Several weeks after other symptoms have gone away, children who had mild COVID-19 develop other symptoms that typically require hospitalization. This is called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, or MIS-C.
MIS-C symptoms include fever, stomach pain, diarrhea, vomiting, neck pain, random rashes and bloodshot eyes. Extreme fatigue is also a symptom, but it’s usually blamed on other problems.
Texas Children’s has vaccinated more than 18,500 12to 15-year-olds since early May.
“We are going to be very busy during the summer months as we seek to immunize as many children as possible,” Versalovic said. “It’s important to protect adolescents to stop the spread of COVID as they get ready for summer activities, camps, sports and the school year in August.”
Clear Creek High School’s summer band camp will be one of the first times Aidan is around his peers for longer than an hour since the pandemic started. The trumpet player said he can’t wait.
“At the start of the pandemic, I had to learn how to make myself be more active inside without heading outside,” Aidan said. “All those months helped me be a better human, but I’m glad to hang out with my friends.”
Even though the CDC said masks are unnecessary during most outdoor activities, no activities are completely risk-free, said Dr. Catherine Troisi, infectious disease epidemiologist at UTHealth School of Public Health.
Troisi recommends a cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether to send a child to a summer camp or a movie theater or bowling alley with their friends. Whether the child is immunocompromised or has another chronic medical condition should be factored in.
She recommends that children and adolescents wear masks in public if they are not inoculated. Vaccinated parents should consider staying masked up in public since they are at risk of contracting the virus and passing it to their children, she said.
If the adolescent is old enough for the vaccine, that’s the safest bet, Troisi said, adding that young people should not be kept inside for fear of contracting the virus.
“Take into account the mental health aspects of being isolated all the time,” Troisi said.
Many experts believe that vaccinating children and adolescents will help the U.S. reach herd immunity faster. Children naturally spread the virus easier, Versalovic said.
In 15 months, the pediatrician has seen infants in the Texas Children’s COVID-19 ICU, as well as several children under age 10. No age group has been spared entirely of COVID-19, he said.
Along with Baylor College of Medicine, the hospital is conducting a pediatric drug trial that is testing Pfizer in children 6 months to 11 years. The trial moves into Phase 2 this month, and Versalovic is hopeful they will receive emergency use approval by the fall.
“It’s very important to let parents know these vaccine trials are underway, and we are going to be working closely with Pfizer, Moderna and other vaccine manufacturers to deliver on that promise to all children by the end of the calendar year,” he said. “We are optimistic.”