Omicron is affecting children in South Africa

[Fairylights25]

I am not sure how the SA doctor can be so relaxed about Omicron variant when we see the stats for children in hospital just coming out:

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-29/young-kids-make-up-10-of-hospital-cases-in-omicron-epicenter

Not wishing to worry anyone, but why don't we know about this? No sign of this headline anywhere that I can see this morning? Or maybe there has been a thread already I have missed. I accept the doctors will be very careful with small children, but the admission rate does seem high to me,

*sorry should read Sweden not US - typo. To see family before Christmas.

OP - you sound really anxious. You have worked yourself up into thinking tonight's press conference is about the effect on kids and that countries are closing borders because they know the big secret that the new variant is more dangerous for kids? Your mind is racing - I'm not being snide but take a look at how OTT your thoughts are here.

My baby is 8 months old and got admitted to hospital but his stats were fine when the paramedics came, it was absolutely pointless.
The paramedics said because he was under 5 it’s an automatic hospital trip.
So not all hospital admissions are life threatening, my son was poorly no doubt about it but it sounds scarier than it was!
(Normal covid)

I am supposed to be taking my young children on a flight in 72 hours, and yes I would rather know if they are at more risk from the new variant before taking them. I don't think that is especially OTT. Personally.

OP, consider please that SA has an extremely high prevalence of HIV / AIDS in children as well compared to the UK.

That is really reassuring muslin It would be good if we knew this was just caution and there is not a real reason to be worried.

I read the article. It says more children under the age of 2 are being admitted. It says the same thing occurred in the early days of delta. It says parents, and physicians, are more cautious with young children, and admit earlier to be on the safe side. It says they don’t know if these children have the new variant.

I’m not sure I’m seeing what there is to panic about? There is no information about how poorly these children are, or if they even have the new variant. More cases across the board naturally means more cases in the under 2s as well, of which a proportion will
be admitted to hospital, as they are with delta, or indeed any other virus. I know a number of children who regularly end up being admitted to hospital in this country, every year, with chest infections. Some children are prone to them, and every cold affects them that way. I wouldn’t expect covid, whatever variant, to be any different.

It’s not just HIV, TB and Malaria are at very high levels in children in this area. COVID is the least of the worries for medical professionals in SA. Do you worry about your kids catching and dying from TB? I doubt it.

I didn't even know there was a conference tonight but it's quite alarming you would jump to the conclusion it's about kids getting the new variant! Threads like this just put fear into people

My DD has asthma that gets triggered by viruses. Not unusual. When she was 3 & 4 years old, she was hospitalised frequently, to be given oxygen for a few days. The children’s wards always had loads of kids with “viral induced wheeze”, just like her.
It would be odd if Covid didn’t cause these hospitalisations, just in the same way that colds do. So there must’ve always been hospital admission of children which could be put down as “wheeze” or whatever the right term is, or could be put down as Covid (asthma wasbt generally diagnosed in under-6’s on one or two episodes - dunno why).

The danger to these children is hospital running out of capacity to treat them. Same reason as if 5% of people need hospital care but don’t get it, the morbidity rate rises to 5%.

No sign of this headline anywhere that I can see this morning?

There are lots of articles about this, not just the one I have added BTW

So which is it?

Thankyou for posting.

There doesn't seem to be any actual facts in your link.

Your post and its title especially is scaremongering. Its baseless and out of context.

If you're really 'Not wishing to worry anyone' don't post this sort of title then pretend you just want to be cautious.

Someone on this parenting website will be needlessly upset by it.

@Fairylights25

I am supposed to be taking my young children on a flight in 72 hours, and yes I would rather know if they are at more risk from the new variant before taking them. I don't think that is especially OTT. Personally.

I would say YABU to travel at the moment unless it is essential.

‘ although a similar trend occurred during the third wave when delta was dominant’

Erm so what’s the difference?!

@Fairylights25

How do I move it? And sorry but there are LOADS of covid related threads in AIBU!

My post explained how to move it. Report your original post to MNHQ and ask them.

Yes, there are Covid threads in AIBU but a quick look at the few on the front page right now shows they are about practicalities with quite mundane titles - 'booster policy invalidating travel insurance', 'school want to see covid result', 'how do I book a booster?' etc. Strictly speaking they should probably be in the Covid topic but they are not going to distress any of the many people who hide that topic as a coping strategy. The same cannot be said of your thread title.

It is now moved!

Oh one of these threads again.

We've seen these before haven't we?

There's so many caveats, it's really not worth worrying about it yet. Eg. Baby could be born in hospital asymptomatic positive and count as an admission, admitted for something else and have asymptomatic covid picked up etc.

These threads don't help anyone.

We have had this scare tactic before when they wanted people to get vaccinated. Interesting how just around the time they are talking about younger children becoming eligible for the vaccine we start to get child death stories in the media.

OP if you are going to Sweden why are you worried about something happening in South Africa?

Thanks for posting op. I started to see this last night...but was afraid to post it because of the reaction you are getting! Too early to say with certainty, but a lot of people are worrying about the increase in rates in young children. Not sure its relevant that these poor kids may also have hiv. It's still terrible.

I am supposed to be taking my young children on a flight in 72 hours, and yes I would rather know if they are at more risk from the new variant before taking them.

You aren't going to know this in 72 hours. The scientists and governments aren't going to know this in 72 hours. So you need to do your own risk assessment.

The reasons the markets are down today is because what the head of Moderna said not this speculative article on kids. The markets are not a good indication of sane thinking. You have young kids and its a worry but you are catastrophising.

freebritnee Yes I thought the same, as they have just introduced vaccines to younger children in the US.

I am worried about flying because the flight is likely to be packed, and the new variant is highly transmissible. Its not contained just to SA.

They had the same figures for the Delta variant which is our dominant variant in the UK.
And yet we are having none of this issue with children in hospital.
There are clearly other factors affecting South Africa