Delta , children and hospital admitances

[AliceLivesHere]

A piece of research that looks at various aspects of Delta.
www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1513

"Are more children becoming ill?
There are no official figures on this.... Steve Turner, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health registrar and consultant paediatrician at Royal Aberdeen Children’s hospital, said, “As it stands there are very few children in hospital in Scotland and across the whole of the UK due to covid. We’re not seeing any evidence of an increase in paediatric admissions with covid. A very small number of admissions who test positive for covid is what we’d expect.
“Our experience over the last 15 months is that many children who test positive have come into hospital for something else, like broken bones. At the moment the situation in the UK is stable. The number of children in hospital with covid remains very low.”6"

Interesting and reassuring.

There this data that says Delta spreading through schools www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1445

together with the comment above in previous piece that says there are 'very few children in hospital with covid' helps paint a picture that many thought was the case before. Children and not in the main effected much by actual covid but perhaps more by lockdown/missing friends/interactions etc

Yep they are definitely affected more by lockdown/lack of social interaction than Covid.
As I said on another post, history will not look back favourably on what we did and we are still doing to children during this pandemic.

And we haven’t seen half of the effects yet. This will have implications for years and years.

I don't know how they're defining children. I'm sceptical.

Children = those under the age of 16. There's less than 20 children in hospital with covid in the whole of Scotland and they're not necessarily in hospital because of covid. It really is just a mild illness in most kids and adults, well its symptomless in most given 80% of the adult population have antibodies.

@Toty

Children = those under the age of 16. There's less than 20 children in hospital with covid in the whole of Scotland and they're not necessarily in hospital because of covid. It really is just a mild illness in most kids and adults, well its symptomless in most given 80% of the adult population have antibodies.

The report says that some children go in with other things eg accidents - the doctor said a broken leg was an example - they test them and some have covid although not in for that.

It does reassure me and the more and more data like this will hopefully help other parents.

It's good news and nice to have good news.

@Paddling654

I don't know how they're defining children. I'm sceptical.

I think another poster said 16 or under. Are you sceptical about the report/what the doctor said? I'm not sure what you mean?

This is reassuring. Like everyone, I am relieved that it seems to cause severe illness and death in children. I would give a caveat in saying we have yet to see the implications for children and adults in terms of Long Covid. It can have profound effect on daily life, education and being socially active.

15% still have symptoms after 6 weeks. 60 % of those still have them after 6 months (Long Covid Kids website).

I think there is a much bigger debate to be had about complications and chronic illness in adults and children.

The government are whistling and putting their fingers in their ears on this one, as they do with many chronic conditions.

People care if you die (and form part of a graph of deaths) they are not quite so bothered if you live but have chronic illness. No one is really interested - if you can't work, join in with family or community etc.

You are essentially invisible.

kisstheteapot did you leave out a 'doesn't' in your first sentence?

Yes! Thanks for pointing that out @pursuedbyablackdog.

I really should read my post before clicking purple button. I was multi tasking - doing my homework for a course and had become distracted by Mumsnet.

I am glad it's NOT causing death and illness - of course!

Theres was a twitter account and maybe member on here listing chikd covid figures name escapes me.

A small proportion of kids get ill.
But the greater the number of kids infections as no mitigating safety measures means greater amount kids infected.
Scotland and Wales have small population compared to England .

I work on an infants ward (aged 0-2) and last week we had two babies on the ward with Covid.

We usually see one baby a week with it - none of them get seriously ill and in the majority of cases, the parent is positive too.

@Delatron

There’s a long old road ahead. I work in MH. I don’t think I’ll be out of a job anytime soon hey.

We will absolutely look back unfavourably.

It’s not going to be pretty.

@ThornAmongstRoses

I work on an infants ward (aged 0-2) and last week we had two babies on the ward with Covid.

We usually see one baby a week with it - none of them get seriously ill and in the majority of cases, the parent is positive too.

Were those 2 babies ok?

Were those 2 babies ok?

Absolutely - they come in for a few days of respiratory support (oxygen nasal prongs) and monitoring etc and then they go home.

The accompanying Covid positive parent always looks pretty crap though.

If this is the case - it being mild in children - why is there such pressure from some scientists to get kids vaccinated?

Kids are a repository and because they mix so much at school etc they will be conductors/carriers. Scientists say there is nothing like herd immunity unless children get a vaccine and then they can't pass it round to community - where there could be vulnerable folk who can't be vaccinated for one reason or another (or vaccines are not effective in all people - it varies as to their immune response).

That's how I understand it from the debates I've heard where scientists have explained their point of view.

Also for a small but significan amount of children (around 9 in 100) there are longer term consequences where the effects of Covid run on past 6 months. There can be organ damage. I'm not being alarmist here, but the simple truth is we are still learning what this virus can/does do. 15 months into a novel virus pandemic is quite a short amount of time - people are still gathering evidence and the picture will evolve in time.

TBH I am seriously considering pulling DS out of school for the rest of July. We are fortunate that he has suffered very little from any MH difficulties and also loves Home Ed. We are also lucky we can joggle work to do this if needs be.

One way or another, with unlocking and the rapid spread (we are in an above average cases area with 203 cases per 100.000), children in state schools and their teachers are being thrown under a bus.

Not to mention the latest errors which have got us here - not listing India as a red zone for political reasons until they had to.

PS Am really glad those babies were OK, hope the parents soon feel better too. Its so hard when the whole family is poorly.

@ThornAmongstRoses

Were those 2 babies ok?

Absolutely - they come in for a few days of respiratory support (oxygen nasal prongs) and monitoring etc and then they go home.

The accompanying Covid positive parent always looks pretty crap though.

Thanks for reply.

That's great. Hopefully parent will recover soon.

I would like to know the longer term effects for these children passing through the children's ward.

We won't know that for months or years.

A small proportion of these Covid positive children will also fall seriously ill in six weeks (ish). That is no small thing.

I understand the suffering that lockdown has caused but the sheer numbers of children involved in this beg questions we don't have answers to

What I will say is that our ward is currently running as it would in the winter season in that we have got so many babies admitted needing oxygen support, on breathing support systems, babies on nebulisers, infants on inhalers etc, it’s just unheard of during the summer months.

We’ve had to ventilate and send three young infants off to ITU departments in just the last week due to severe breathing difficulties.

These children all negative for Covid and had other other ‘run of the mill’ viruses that wouldn’t normally causes this level of illness.

I do wonder what detrimental effect all these lockdowns have had on the immune systems of babies and infants which are now being realised as lockdown has eased over the last month: I.e they just don’t an immune system and so even the common viruses are now making them seriously ill.

It's not true that the number of children in hospital is low. The number of children in hospital with Covid is low. The number of children in hospital with non-Covid respiratory illnesses is unprecedentedly high for the time of year. Never seen anything like it.

@nocoolnamesleft

It's not true that the number of children in hospital is low. The number of children in hospital with Covid is low. The number of children in hospital with non-Covid respiratory illnesses is unprecedentedly high for the time of year. Never seen anything like it.

I meant with covid. The information I read was with regard to covid only and not how many children were in hospital for other illnesses etc. That is good news. Awful for any children in hospital of course.