With the re­cent­ly re­port­ed death of a child due to COVID-19, par­ents are be­ing ad­vised to take all the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions to pro­tect their chil­dren, in­clud­ing vac­ci­na­tion.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s “The Morn­ing Brew” to­day, Se­nior Emer­gency Pae­di­atric Spe­cial­ist, Dr Joanne Paul, ob­served that 95 per cent of those who are dy­ing from COVID-19 in this coun­try are those who have not been vac­ci­nat­ed at all, and re­it­er­at­ed the im­por­tance of the two-week pe­ri­od af­ter vac­ci­na­tion to build one’s im­mu­ni­ty to the virus.

Dr Paul said a holis­tic ap­proach is need­ed to com­bat the virus in adults, as well as chil­dren, name­ly, en­sur­ing one is as healthy as pos­si­ble even though one may have tak­en the vac­cine. She ex­plains:

“There is a pub­lic health, there is vac­cine health, and there is your im­mune health and phys­i­cal health.  You and your child al­so must be phys­i­cal­ly bet­ter.  You can’t say ‘I’m go­ing to take the vac­cine and it is go­ing to pro­tect me, and if it doesn’t pro­tect me, they are all wrong’… But I am go­ing to eat five dou­bles to­day and KFC and Roy­al Cas­tle and what­ev­er’.”

She added: “You have to al­so say, ‘I am us­ing this as an ad­di­tion­al fea­ture to pro­tect me, but I am al­so go­ing to be ex­er­cis­ing, pray­ing, and med­i­tat­ing, and be­ing mind­ful, man­ag­ing my stress and men­tal health, and what­ev­er it takes to im­prove my im­mune health’.  I think peo­ple tend to for­get about those oth­er lay­ers of pro­tec­tion.” 

Dr Paul re­vealed that ma­jor­i­ty of chil­dren pre­sent­ing with se­vere COVID-19 symp­toms are those with oth­er un­der­ly­ing health con­di­tions.

“We have found with chil­dren who have been sick in terms of go­ing to the COVID fa­cil­i­ties, one of the high co­mor­bidi­ties has been obe­si­ty.  Di­a­betes to a less­er ex­tent, but obe­si­ty has been sig­nif­i­cant,” she re­port­ed, “al­so con­gen­i­tal heart dis­ease.”

“So par­ents, if you are talk­ing about pro­tec­tion for your child, look at it holis­ti­cal­ly,” she urges.  “You want to make sure you have your child vac­ci­nat­ed if they are above 11 years old. But al­so look at their phys­i­cal health.  Make sure you are do­ing every­thing for them, and not just for them but the en­tire fam­i­ly.  You want to pro­tect your en­tire fam­i­ly.”

But Dr Paul says the main mor­bid­i­ty that has been ob­served in chil­dren is heart ail­ments.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, when they come in, they usu­al­ly come in with not so much res­pi­ra­to­ry symp­toms like adults do.  They might have GI or gas­tro-in­testi­nal is­sues.  They might have di­ar­rhoea.  You might find they have cog­ni­tive is­sues—their brain may not be work­ing as well.  Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, how­ev­er, the thing that re­al­ly af­fects them in terms of sud­den death is heart is­sues,” she notes.

“What we have found is that the ones who have not re­al­ly done that well as the ones who have had dif­fer­ent heart rhythms that have gone wonky be­cause their heart is now in­flamed,” she points out.  “The same my­ocardi­tis we’ve heard about, COVID-19 caus­es that.”

The Se­nior Emer­gency Pae­di­atric Spe­cial­ist notes that re­cent da­ta has shown that vac­ci­na­tion against COVID-19 in the ado­les­cent pop­u­la­tion has led to a re­duc­tion in my­ocardi­tis.

She ad­vis­es par­ents: “If you find that your child’s heart rate is a bit too slow or too high, check that out.  If you find your child be­com­ing lethar­gic, look out for that.  If you no­tice that things aren’t quite right, make sure and bring them to a health fa­cil­i­ty to be re­viewed.”

She says it is im­por­tant to lis­ten to the con­cerns and fears par­ents may have on the is­sues and fur­nish them with as much as in­for­ma­tion as pos­si­ble so they can make the best choice for their chil­dren.  She is en­cour­ag­ing them to get their in­for­ma­tion from their health care pro­fes­sion­als.