Increase in Child Hospitalisations in Florida

[ClimbDad]

In February we saw what was happening in the rest of the world and some believed it wouldn’t happen here.

We can see what’s happening in America. Children are being infected at a worrying rate and hospitalised.

Make no mistake, if schools open with normal class sizes, without masks for all, this airborne, respiratory virus will do the same thing here.

Positive thinking won’t protect us. If you genuinely want schools to stay open during flu season, you’ll stop saying, “Don’t be so negative,” and will instead do something practical to protect yourselves, your children and school staff. Masks reduce transmission. Send kids back to school without them, and you will help ensure schools are closed again by November.

This virus is perfectly predictable. Stop expecting it to be kind to us.

www.cnn.com/2020/07/27/health/florida-covid-children-hospitalizations/index.html

@IrmaFayLear

Hold up, chaps - ClimbDad has new scary statistics on another thread!

If its not about cats wearing masks or children locked in sterile glass cages for the next 30 years then I'm not interested

@KingFredsTache

I know a couple of people in RL whose children are now scared to step foot inside a shop, are worried about going back to school and are generally terrified of the outside world.

I think that is an absolutely awful thing to do to your child to be honest. How are they going to recover from that? I do wonder how many people on these threads are doing similar to their children?

I've seen this too

I saw a kid yesterday being made to gel her hands between each item of food she ate whilst at a park, despite having touching nothing other than her food between each item.

I could see how stressed the mum was and how upset the child was getting

There are children with long-term Covid. Many are on Slack, the Body Politic website and app, which has a channel for long-term Covid sufferers offering support, resources and information.

They are out there, the media just choose not to report on this, or people don't want to hear it, I don't know which... Maybe a bit of both.

My own ds, who is 5 years old, caught Covid from me despite me isolating in another room for 4 weeks. He was ill for 6 weeks. Although fine in himself now, he is still wheezy 12 weeks on. The doctor thinks he may have developed asthma now but they won't actually see him yet. He is also suffering from constant nose bleeds for the first time. I'm worried he has some damage but no one will investigate further at this time because, as my doctor said to me, there's not a lot they could do for him anyway. This is the reality. Most, not all, illnesses have a plan, a treatment. But this is unchartered territory. And the many doctors I've seen look more scared than me!

I'm not saying I won't send my kids back to school in September, I am planning to, but only if the situation doesn't worsen. But we all need to be aware that this can and is happening to children and we should be taking every precaution to keep them safe - within a reasonable quality of life.

Anyway, I just wanted to make the point that non-death and non-hospitalisation does not always equal 'mild'.

Sorry to hear that MrsSSG. I hope that your son makes a full recovery over the next few months.

Lots of virus though have long term complications - Coronavirus biggest issue has always been the scale of those infected.

DS took 2 years to recover from his scarlet fever/sepsis and had so much time off school we were contacted by the Education Welfare Officer and had to get his medical records sorted. Glandular fever took me a long time as well

Any number is meaningless without context though. And it depends on how you read the context as being positive or negative

We really should be looking at other countries and trying to learn.

I think I share two of your frustrations @ClimbDad.

One, we didn’t learn in Jan/Feb and we don’t seem to be paying full attention now.

And secondly, politicians seem to be finding stats and science to fit their agendas, whilst brushing other stuff under the carpet.

Of course there could be loads more going on behind the scenes.

I feel like the press is all a bit too filtered at the moment, I like reading your posts as they’re well thought out and I can feel your genuine desire to avoid a second disaster.

And I genuinely really like balanced arguments in the other direction that give me hope that it might be ok.

But I don’t like the venom. It feels like people protesting too much as well tbh. You’re passionate and asking difficult questions, often about things that I would rather not think about, but these questions need to be asked. I don’t think we should be chastising people for caring and thinking.

I hope your questions are being asked to those in power. Be it an audience of 12 or 120, I think your sharing is obviously caring and worth doing. I also think things will change, we are six weeks away from September. Hope you’re ok and thank you.