Rohem Stamey, 12, suffers from a rare COVID-19 complication affecting children known as Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C (photo provided by Mission Hospital)
by Kristen Jordan Shamus, Detroit Free Press, Christina Hall, Detroit Free Press (Bridge Michigan)
Children aren’t immune to COVID-19. They can get sick, just like adults do. They can be hospitalized, the same as adults. And rarely, they can even die.
That’s the message doctors at several of Michigan’s children’s hospitals want people to hear as the state confronts yet another massive surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, which reached 3,953 Monday, surpassing the state’s November/December spike.
“The state is at a record high for hospitalizations for pediatrics during the entire pandemic and our hospital reflects that,” said Dr. Rudolph Valentini, a pediatric nephrologist at Children’s Hospital of Michigan and group chief medical officer for the Detroit Medical Center.
Statewide, 49 children were hospitalized Monday with either confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, according to state data.
With Michigan’s case rate of 515.8 per 100,000 people over the last week — the worst in the nation and four times higher than the rate in neighboring Ohio, according to data from the CDC — more people in general are going to get sick.
That includes kids, said Dr. Prashant Mahajan, an emergency medicine physician and division chief of children’s emergency medicine at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.
“There is definitely an increase in the total number of patients that are coming to the ER, both on the pediatric side and the adult side,” Mahajan said. “And the reason I bring both pediatric and adult is because we see children up to 21 years of age at Mott Children’s.
“We are seeing the number of patients who are getting admitted who had a baseline illness, like say for example, asthma or Crohn’s disease, increase. Those patients are now coming in with COVID,” he said.
Among the biggest drivers of coronavirus infections in the state, health officials have said, are outbreaks among youth athletes and those associated with K-12 schools. This week, the state reported 312 ongoing or new school outbreaks, which includes infections linked to classrooms, after-school activities and sports.
Cases among kids ages 10-19 are at an all-time high, the state’s top epidemiologist, Sarah Lyon-Callo, reported last week, quadrupling from four weeks earlier.
Dr. Matthew Sims, director of infectious disease research at Beaumont Health, said Michigan’s kids might be contracting the virus at a higher rate now than they did in previous surges because they’re able to socialize, attend in-person classes and continue to play sports now — spreading the virus during these activities — in a way that wasn’t possible during previous waves.
When the first huge spike in coronavirus infections slammed the state in March and April of 2020, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued an executive order pushing all K-12 schools to virtual learning. Sports were stopped, restaurants closed, and the opportunity for the virus to spread shrank.
In November, when the state was hit yet again with high coronavirus case rates and hospitalizations, the state health department issued a public health order mandating a temporary pause for in-person high school and college classes. High school sports were suspended and in-person dining was stopped, too.
That’s not the case this time. Although Whitmer has encouraged people to avoid in-person dining, urged schools to take a two-week pause from in-person classes following spring break, and asked youth sports teams to also suspend playing, there is no requirement shutting them down.
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Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.
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