Important letter from Dr. David Shadowen
COVID-19 is on the rise both in Kentucky and in the rest of the United States. In early June we had made great progress towards masks coming off and people getting back together. Since then, the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths have gone back up. In the US, the obvious statistic was that for both May and June, 2021, 98% of COVID-19 hospitalizations were patients that were unvaccinated and 99% of deaths were in those unvaccinated. As expected, pediatric cases continue to rise since ages less than 12 cannot get a vaccine and those between 12 and 15 must have parental consent to get a vaccine. Further, the authorization for use of the vaccine in this 12 to 15 age group has only been in place for the past few months. The American Academy of Pediatrics reports through July 29, 2021 there have been 4,198,296 cases of COVID-19 in ages less than 19. That makes up 14% of the total number of cases in America (29,402,405 total cases of COVID-19 in the US). Cases are skyrocketing in the pediatric population. For the week of June 4, 2021, in the US, there were 8,447 cases of COVID-19 in children; for the week of July 22, 2021, the number had increased to 38,854 cases; and for the week of July 29, 2021, there were 71,726 pediatric cases.
In Kentucky there have been 75,114 cases of COVID-19 or about 6.7% of the entire pediatric population have been infected. In Vermont, a state with a high vaccination rate in adults (67.7%), the rate of children infected with COVID-19 is just 4.2%. This demonstrates that higher vaccination rates in adults positively impacts childhood rates of COVID-19.
Lately, hospitalization rates for children with COVID-19 are continuing to rise. As of August 3, 2021, there were 142 children with COVID-19 in Texas hospitals and 135 children with COVID-19 in Florida hospitals. On August 4th alone there were 46 children admitted to Florida hospitals in just one day. The Covid-net database from the CDC reports that for only 14 states from March 7, 2020 to July 24, 2021 there were 1257 cases of COVID-19 hospitalized children ages 0 to 4 and 2096 children aged 5 to 17. (These 14 states represent about 10 % of the US population). Data is showing that most adults hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated and have underlying health problems, such as high blood pressure or obesity. This is not the case with children. In contrast, for children aged 0 to 17, 46% of children hospitalized had no underlying disease. When kids had underlying diseases, obesity was most common at a rate of 33.9 %, followed by asthma at 14.8%, metabolic disease at 5.1%, cardiac disease at 4.9%, and immune suppression at 4.7%. So while adults often had underlying health problems, it turns out about half of kids hospitalized with COVID-19 did not have any underlying diseases (46%). I have talked with one parent who said she had vaccinated her child with asthma but not her child who did not have asthma or another health problem. I think this is a misconception that parents often have that otherwise healthy children will not get COVID-19 and will not be hospitalized.
Children are also dying of COVID-19. The CDC through the National Center for Health Statistics reports in the US from January 4, 2020 through July 31, 2021 there have been 128 deaths in children ages 0 to 4 and 288 deaths ages 5 to 18. In the past, most deaths have been in the elderly. Now, the elderly are much better vaccinated than younger people now, so we would expect the percentage of deaths in children and younger adults to go up since almost all people dying now are unvaccinated.
The Bowling Green Daily News reported on August 5, 2021 that Kentucky had more than 2,583 new COVID-19 cases on August 4. That represents the highest number of new cases since February. Med Center Health has required employees to be vaccinated as a condition of employment unless there is a medical or religious reason against it. This will protect the employees and patients there and I agree with this plan. The largest nursing home group in the nation, Genesis Healthcare, has also done this, which I also think will save the lives of our elderly. I was pleased to see WKU will add a mask mandate starting August 9 for everyone indoors which will protect students, faculty, and staff. Hopefully, when more people are vaccinated and rates of infection go down this won’t be needed, but for now it is the safest option.
I do not understand why our local school districts do not have a mask mandate in place to protect children less than 12 who are currently unvaccinated. Our junior high and high schools, where the vast majority of students are currently unvaccinated, need a mask mandate as well. In Kentucky, we require students to have had vaccines for DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis), polio, hepatitis B, measles, mumps and rubella, and chickenpox. When kids are together in close areas, such as school without masks, this virus will continue to spread. We need to do all we can with masks and vaccines to protect our children and our families from hospitalization and death due to COVID-19.
David Shadowen, M.D.