JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The most recent data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the total COVID-19 pediatric hospitalizations in Florida reached a new high Friday.
At Wolfson Children’s Hospital on Monday, nearly two dozen patients were hospitalized with the virus. Dr. Steven Pattishall, a pediatric hospitalist at Wolfson, told News4JAX that most of the children at the hospital are primarily there for something else, but he said some children are still getting very sick from the virus.
One mother, who spoke to News4JAX on a condition of anonymity as to maintain her family’s privacy, said her 12-year-old daughter, who has asthma, went to the hospital with a fever of 105 degrees. She said her daughter received care at the hospital for two days.
“The doctors were very concerned that she was going to have a heart attack or a stroke,” the mother said.
Pattishall said that overall, children in the hospital now with COVID-19 aren’t nearly as sick as those who were hospitalized during the Delta surge.
“We still have some kids that are symptomatic from a breathing perspective or illness perspective, but a lot more kids that are just positive and found incidentally, which I think just reflects how much is out there in the community,” Pattishall said.
The Florida Department of Health shows that as of last week, 18% of children ages 5 to 11 in Florida have been vaccinated against COVID-19. Pattishall said he’s not sure why more children aren’t getting vaccinated, saying it’s safe.
“We haven’t seen, at least certainly here in the hospital, we have not seen any kids presenting with side effects from the vaccine,” Pattishall said.
But he adds, like adults, children are at risk of getting long COVID, with symptoms like fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive problems.
The mother we spoke with says her daughter has tested negative since being released from the hospital and is back to her old self, and she’s thankful she was vaccinated.
Pattishall says it’s too soon to know if the Omicron variant could lead to multi-inflammatory syndrome in children, which has been blamed on previous variants of the virus. He says that’s because it usually presents four to six weeks after infection, and we’re just now hitting about four weeks of seeing the Omicron variant. Symptoms to look for include a persistent fever, muscles aches and fatigue.