Dr. Susan Teggatz has been a practicing pediatrician for 20 years, the past six serving at the St. Anthony Clinic in Carroll. She has an important message she wants to get out about COVID-19 in children.
She believes the rate of childhood COVID positives is probably very high in the area, but mathematical statistics just aren’t readily available because of so many cases being mild or asymptomatic. However, it is very important now, especially with wide-spread cases in our area, that people recognize the presence of the virus so they can take the proper steps to protect their elderly family members or those at high risk. Mitigation methods continue to be stressed.
Although Teggatz says she is not seeing a big uptick in new children’s COVID cases at her clinic, she believes complications could arise with seasonal illnesses.
The few serious cases she is seeing have had underlying conditions. However, what she is hearing from specialists is that many immunocompromised children are not getting acute symptoms. Much like in adults, there are sometimes no known reasons why it is more severe in one patient than another. Teggatz is not comfortable giving a blanket generalization on recommendations for when parents or guardians should seek professional medical assistance and advice.
When the pandemic first hit, nearly everything was shut down, and that included doctor’s offices. People were not getting routine care and now another concern is that if immunization rates drop, we could see a resurgence of some diseases.
She says that is why it is critical for children’s immunizations and flu vaccinations to continue. This year, she says, if there is co-infection of influenza with COVID, these children will be at higher risk for severe complications and will need more care. Many offices are making special accommodations for well visits. Dr. Teggatz does those in the morning and sick visits in the afternoon to keep patients as separated as possible. She adds the jury is still out about children and the spread of COVID. She points to several reasons why it may not spread as easily; children do not tend to have runny noses as severe as seen with RSV or colds and kids don’t typically spend long periods of time in face-to-face conversations with others. Her advice to parents is to go with their gut and seek medical assistance at their comfort level, teach children the proper way to wear a mask, spend time on the repetition necessary for mask wearing to become a habit and help them learn the appropriate length of time for hand washing to be effective in killing germs.
