Wednesday, January 19th 2022, 10:26 pm
In a roundtable, health officials said they’ve heard time and time again people say we should all just get omicron and get it over with. They’re asking people to think about long-term effects, especially among children.
“Last week we had almost 1-million children test positive for COVID-19 which represents over 21% of overall cases,” said Donna Tyungu, M.D., the Director Infection Prevention and Control at OU Children’s Hospital.
Doctors at OU Children's said the recent uptick in Omicron cases among children is taking center stage in our state.
“During the pandemic we have had 9.5-million kids test positive. in the past week we’ve had 10% of those cases added just in the past week alone with omicron,” said Doctor Tyungu.
While this strain isn’t causing a loss of taste or smell for children, in some cases it’s causing inflammation in their brain causing seizures.
“More recently with Omicron younger children who really don’t want to eat or drink and are coming in with dehydration. A large number of young infants have been admitted,” said Stephanie Deleon, M.D., the Inpatient Medical Director at OU Children’s Hospital.
Health officials are standing by the COVID-19 vaccine.
“The vaccine for 5-11 year old’s has been found to be 91% effective. This is huge and that is a great rate of efficacy for our children,” said Amy Middleman, M.D., the Chief of Adolescent Medicine at OU Children’s Hospital.
With a virus as contagious as missals, they said vaccinations are a must to stop the spread.
“One of the concerns of course is that only about 42% of 12–17-year old’s in this state have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19,” said Doctor Middleman.
Health officials sad in order to prevent outbreaks we need a 90% or higher vaccination rate.
January 19th, 2022
April 17th, 2024
April 17th, 2024
April 17th, 2024
April 17th, 2024
April 17th, 2024
April 17th, 2024