SPRINGFIELD – A month ago, there was not a single case of COVID-19 at Baystate Children’s Hospital. So far this month, there have been five admissions for children at Baystate Health Laboratories reporting a positive rate of up to 9% among those under 18 – three times the state average.
Dr. Charlotte Boney, chair of the Baystate Medical Center’s pediatric department and chief pediatrician, described the increase in admissions and the positivity rate on Friday as “very worrying”.
“Since April 1, we have admitted five children with COVID-19, two of whom are in intensive care for children and one of them with post-infectious inflammatory, called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C),” Boney said. “It’s very worrying.”
She mentions domestic dispatch, as well as sports activities, social gatherings and ‘not school’, as ‘where these children get infected’. Studies have generally shown low rate of coronavirus spread in primary schools that comply with the Centers for Disease Control Guidelines.
“Kids get home, not school,” Boney said. ‘They bring it out in the community, sports, recreation and social events. I think they get it from the 20-, 30- and 40-year-olds who are not vaccinated. They give it to their children who give it to other children. We are very worried. ”
According to Boney, more of the population aged 16 and older being vaccinated will definitely help reduce transmission, and she added that Baystate hopes to participate in clinical trials for a vaccine for children under 16. There are currently no vaccines available. allowed in the United States for this age group.
Nearly 23% of the state’s residents have been completely vaccinated against the virus and about 40 percent have received one dose. About 18% of Hampden County’s population is fully vaccinated. This includes 23% of over 18 and 51% of over 65.
“Vaccination of young adults will make a big difference in the infection rate in children,” Boney said, adding that she suspects variants spreading in the state infect children as well as the general population, but that it is unclear whether it a factor is in the hospitalization of children. tariffs.
Boney said the rate for positivity tests tested at the end of February among pediatric cases Baystate tested dropped last week but is still high compared to state and community figures, as well as child admissions.
“COVID’s pediatric cases are starting to decline again – the rate for Baystate laboratories under the age of 18 is up to 7%,” Boney said. ‘The total percentage of Baystate Health, which is much more adults than children, is 4.4%. The state is up to 2.5%. ”
She added that COVID-19 admissions to the Children’s Hospital still ‘make up about 2% of the COVID admissions to the medical center’, but has expressed particular concern over the past three or four weeks that the admissions of children with adults have been recorded. for COVID.
“Usually we also don’t see this increase in hospitalizations in children, and yet we did,” Boney said. ‘We are back with five children in our hospital with COVID-19. A month ago we had no one. We went maybe weeks, maybe one hospitalization, maybe none, maybe one, maybe nothing. ”
Boney said she hoped “the recent trend of declining infection rates in children last week” would continue, as she said exposure to the virus posed a risk to MIS-C, which she called “very unpredictable”.
“Children can get this life-threatening, post-infectious syndrome and they did not even know they had COVID 19 weeks before,” Boney said, referring to results from a recent CDC study on MIS-C. “If you look nationally, more than thirty children have died from this syndrome.”
Boney said Baystate Children’s has treated about 80 cases of coronavirus in hospital since the pandemic began spreading in the Commonwealth in March last year, saying it reflects the same differences. in ethnic and racial groups as we see in adults. ”
She said the 80 cases, some of which require follow-up work but all were successfully treated and released, include about 20 diagnosed with MIS-C. She calls the syndrome, a rare but serious condition associated with COVID-19, which can affect many of the body’s organs, “very narrow.”
Boney added that many children infected with COVID ‘do not have very serious diseases’, but that there is a small group of children who are really ill, and then there is a smaller group of children who have the syndrome. . ‘
“If we had admitted between 75 and 80 cases of children to our hospital for COVID-19 since March 2020, we might have had about 15 children with MISC,” Boney said.
New graphic information boards included in the Massachusetts Department of Health’s daily reports on the pandemic highlight the continuing spread among those under 40, as the state works to open immunizations to all age groups by mid-April.
From the highlighted data, it appears that those 20 to 29, who make up 14.74% of the population, make up 15.73% of the case per 100,000, while those 60 to 69, who make up 12.08% of the population, 6, 00% of the case.
It also shows that those under 4, who make up 5.15% of the population, make up 7.34% of the case per 100,000; the ages 5 to 9, which account for 5.3% of the population, are 9.09% of the case per 100,000; ages 10 to 14, 5.72% of the population, occupies 10.63% of the case per 100,000; and ages 15 to 19, 6.63% of the population, accounts for 14.71% of the case per 100,000
Raw data from the website shows that the average age of cases in the state for the period March 21 to April 3 is 34 years, 61 years for those admitted to the hospital and 76 years old for those who died.
“We have not seen any significant increase in COVID patients in the past week, although the number is still fluctuating daily,” said Dr. Robert Roose, chief medical officer of Mercy Medical Center, said Thursday. “The number of hospitalized patients at Mercy has been stable over the past two weeks and today we have 11 COVID-19 inpatients.”
He added: “The average age of these patients is lower than earlier in the pandemic, and fewer of these patients are in the intensive care unit.”
“On average, our COVID inpatients were in the pandemic in the early ’70s – now they’s in their’ 50s,” Roose said. “Although more individuals are receiving the COVID vaccine every day, it is important that we remain vigilant about masking, social distance and hand hygiene. I would also encourage all members of the community to make an appointment for the COVID vaccine as soon as it is eligible. ”
Data across the country indicate that cases of coronavirus disease as well as hospitalizations are still on the rise.
Public health experts cite a number of reasons. Vaccination rates remain well below the levels needed to stop transmission within communities, especially with the spread of the variant that is considered more contagious, and which can be called the human variant – adherence to personal safety practices, as states reduce restrictions on the to prevent the spread of respiratory virus.
Related content: