It’s October 2021, 19 months after the COVID-19 pandemic began. Life is still strange and stressful. Healthcare workers are burning out. Misinformation, disinformation and hateful comments directed at healthcare workers are at an all time high. Children continue to suffer when adults are unwilling to make sacrifices that will protect them. Pediatricians continue to be left out of the room when decisions are made regarding their patients. And now, as the FDA is about to meet regarding Emergency Use Authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5-11 years old, we are beginning to see anger from those who think the vaccine is unnecessary.
Before you hit send or post on that hateful message to or about your pediatrician, consider who is on the other side of that message. Consider what we have done over the past year and half to stay open, stay available, and stay safe. All of it was for you and your child.
Early on, we were all afraid to be at work. We were afraid to be exposed and potentially bring the virus home to our families. We were also concerned about a significant drop in business and how we would keep our doors open. Here are just a few things the leaders, doctors, nurse practitioners, managers and staff at my group (27 offices, 150 doctors/NPs, hundreds of staff) have accomplished in order to survive the pandemic.
- Immediate shift to focusing on all things pandemic.
- Robust shift in operations to keep everyone safe.
- Invested heavily in PPE and new communication platforms to inform families of new information and changes to our practice via email and text message.
- Worked tirelessly to gather information and keep our website updated.
- Immediately ramped up a robust and state of the art telehealth program that is now a permanent fixture for our group.
- Shifted our practice to see more well visits so patients could catch up when they felt ready to come in.
- Addressed the mental health pandemic with comprehensive training and adjusting our schedules to accommodate a significant number of mental health patients.
- Developed a COVID-19 testing program and now have made significant scheduling changes to accommodate an increase in sick patients.
- Signed up to be among the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our patients. We did this because we believe in the science, we want to end the pandemic, and sick doctors means less availability for our patients.
Despite the availability of vaccines for the past 8 months, many continue to refuse to get vaccinated. This has led to new and more dangerous variants of the virus and has once again overwhelmed many healthcare systems around the country. While I’m lucky to not be working in a collapsing hospital/ICU environment, I’m still seeing sick children whose parents are very worried about COVID. Children who are too young to be vaccinated and therefore don’t have a choice if the adults around them choose to get protected or not. Many parents I meet are anxiously awaiting the vaccine for their children. Some, however, still question the necessity.
Risk to children from COVID-19
Do children get COVID-19? Yes they do. They can also die from it, get long COVID, and can develop a condition called Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome of Childhood, MIS-C for short. Do these complications occur at the same rate as in adults? No. But COVID-19 isn’t zero risk for children. Take a look at the numbers up until August 2021 here.
Do I think children should be vaccinated if the FDA, CDC and AAP feel the vaccine is safe and effective? I do. Why? Consider the other negative outcomes, besides death, that occur when a child gets infected.
- Potential for hospitalization or ICU stay
- Potential for Long Haul COVID
- Potential to spread the disease to a vulnerable family member (many children are suffering the emotional fallout of spreading COVID to a family member who then passed away)
- Missed days at school
- Missed days at work for the parent
- Potential to force their class into quarantine
- Continuation of the pandemic, potential to create new variants
- Continued use of an over worked healthcare system
Pediatricians are all doing their best to advocate for children and counteract misinformation. We’ve all seen the effects of the pandemic on our patients and their families. From a lost year of education, to the mental health crisis, to deaths of family members; children have suffered greatly. Masks and vaccines are not child abuse. These are life saving measures enacted to protect everyone and keep schools safe. Just like good ventilation and hand washing, we need to do everything we can to add to these layers of protection. So please, talk to your pediatrician and get your questions answered by experts before adding to the hateful rhetoric that contributes to the stress and burnout we are all feeling. Thank you.
This is my opinion only and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of my employer.