搜尋結果
2022年4月14日 · Full coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. The clinical trial of the booster shot included 140 children ages 5 through 11. In a smaller sub-analysis of 30 kids in the trial, Pfizer said the additional...
2022年3月1日 · Vaccine effectiveness against any Covid-19 infection dropped from 68 percent to just 12 percent by the height of omicron’s wave. But among kids 12 and older, that effectiveness dropped to just ...
- Overview
- A 'bread and butter' diagnosis
- Risk for hospitalization as vaccines lag
Covid-19's omicron variant appears to be affecting children under age 5 in a new way: a harsh, barking cough known as croup.
While croup generally is not harmful, it can be frightening for parents already on edge about their babies and toddlers, too young for the Covid-19 vaccine, becoming infected with the virus.
Full coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic
Doctors say this is most likely occurring because it appears omicron tends to settle higher up in the respiratory tract, rather than deeper in the lungs.
"Little kids' airways are so narrow that it takes far less inflammation to clog them," said Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious disease expert and director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.
When a child with tiny, inflamed airways breathes, it makes a distinctive noise, and can result in a cough that sounds like a dog or a seal.
One reassuring thought for parents is that croup and bronchiolitis are well-known to doctors, who have had decades of experience treating the conditions.
"Croup is a bread and butter pediatric diagnosis," said Dr. Mark Kline, the physician-in-chief at Children’s Hospital New Orleans. "Infectious croup is one of the first diseases you learn about when you're an intern in pediatrics." Kline's team, too, has noted the uptick in Covid-related croup.
Dr. Amy Edwards, a pediatric infectious disease expert at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland, agreed.
"As pediatricians, seeing more kids with croup and bronchiolitis is oddly reassuring," she said, "because we've been dealing with those conditions for our entire careers."
Croup can be "scary to hear, but it doesn't mean there is any problem with the lungs," she said. "The main treatment is to keep the upper airways open and clear until the inflammation subsides."
Croup may require a few days of steroids, but often goes away on its own. Sometimes kids with bronchiolitis need oxygen support or breathing treatments, Edwards said, before generally recovering completely.
Edwards and others want to reassure parents that the vast majority of young children with Covid-19 are likely to have mild illness. But it is possible that some children, even previously healthy ones, can develop serious complications that require hospitalization.
On Friday, the CDC released new data showing that hospitalization rates are increasing among the youngest kids for whom there is no vaccine: ages 0 to 4.
More than 4 in 100,000 children under age 5 were admitted to a hospital with Covid-19 as of January 1, the CDC reported.
What's more an NBC News analysis of Health and Human Services data finds that at least 16 states have broken records for the number of pediatric hospitalizations linked to Covid-19.
Nearly 40 percent of the pediatric hospitalizations at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston include children under 5, said Dr. Jim Versalovic, a pathologist who is a co-leader of the hospital's Covid-19 Command Center.
Vaccines are one of the best ways to protect against infection, but those shots are not expected any time soon for the youngest children.
2022年10月12日 · Omicron booster shots cleared for children as young as 5, CDC says The CDC’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, signed off on the updated Covid vaccines only hours after the Food and Drug ...
2021年12月21日 · Fatigue. Nasal congestion. Runny nose. Headache. Muscle aches. Unlike earlier variants like delta that affected the lungs, omicron and its subvariants tend to cause more upper respiratory symptoms ...
2021年12月28日 · Dec. 28, 2021, 10:15 AM PST. By Berkeley Lovelace Jr. People who had Covid-19 and are later reinfected with the omicron variant may experience fewer symptoms than they did during their initial...
2021年12月8日 · Dec. 8, 2021, 10:22 AM PST. By Denise Chow. It's a worrisome convergence: falling antibody levels and a new variant. Scientists have warned that a coronavirus variant like omicron, which appears...
