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Every day is a bit of a guessing game when it comes to how many children will come to Indio Palms Learning Land.
Ruth Abawag, director of the Indio-based daycare center, said she has 18 preschoolers, between the ages of 2 1/5 and 5, and 20 after-school children, in kindergarten through fifth grade, enrolled. But due to the latest wave of COVID-19 infections, those numbers are rarely reached. Daily attendance is on average between 10 and 12 preschoolers and 15 after-school children.
“They’re either staying home, or my after-school children are being sent home from school if they have a cough,” Abawag said.
The omicron variant has spread throughout Riverside County and Coachella Valley in recent weeks and has impacted the youngest populations. COVID-19 infections for the 0 to 17 age group in Riverside County increased 153% in the week ending Jan. 19 and another 63% in the week ending Wednesday. Student cases have also been high in local school districts. On Friday, there were 497 at Palm Springs Unified School District; 601 at Desert Sands Unified School District; and 248 at Coachella Valley Unified School District.
Nationwide, 1.1 million child COVID-19 cases were reported in the week ending Jan. 20, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Related: Riverside County reports death of infant from COVID-19, becoming youngest death from virus in county
Abawag said there haven’t been any outbreaks in her center, and parents, if they test positive, “have been really good” about informing her and keeping their children home.
Hospitalizations, though, are high among youngsters. Nationwide, an average of 820 children under the age of 17 are being admitted to hospitals with COVID each day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Coachella Valley has fared comparatively well with its pediatric patient numbers so far. Since Dec. 1, 2021, there have been six COVID-related pediatric admissions at JFK Memorial in Indio and one at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, according to spokeswoman Krista Deans.
January data from Eisenhower Health show there have been more than 80 COVID-19 cases for both the 0 to 4 age group and 5 to 11 age group, and more than 100 cases for the 12 to 17 age group. That’s three to four times higher than case numbers since July.
If a local child were to need a higher level of care, they would be transferred to Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital. Recently, the hospital reached its peak number of COVID-19 positive patients with 72, which Dr. Alexandra Clark, division chief of general pediatrics and pediatric hospital medicine, said is “quite a bit higher than any of the previous surges.” The census also included a subset of COVID-positive women in labor.
With the initial COVID-19 virus, Clark said fewer children were impacted than adults, and those that did test positive were mostly asymptomatic. The delta variant, however, brought more children hospitalized with the disease itself, and many with COVID pneumonia, Clark said.
The omicron variant has been “a bit of a mixed bag,” she said.
“We’ve fortunately seen quite a few children who test positive, but they do OK,” similar to the initial strain of COVID-19, Clark said. “However, we’re seeing a subset of really, really sick kids, some with comorbid risk factors, but not all of them. Some of them previously healthy, no other reason why this should have impacted them greater than the next child.”
Clark said there have been children, including those under 1, intubated in intensive care units, and some pediatric patients with severe lung disease or needing to be put on machines that help oxygenate their blood outside of their lungs.
There are major risk factors that make some children more susceptible to severe disease, such as obesity, already having lung disease, severe asthma or compromised immune systems. But unvaccinated children, Clark said, are an overwhelming majority of the ones hospitalized with the most severe disease.
“I queried my hospitalist group to say can we think of a kid who we’ve taken care of with severe disease who was vaccinated, and none of us could come up with a child that we’ve cared for,” Clark said. “It’s not to say that the vaccinated child will never have that occur to them, but our cohort is near 100% unvaccinated children that are being hospitalized for their COVID.”
Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital is also seeing multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) cases, which can involve different body parts becoming inflamed. Much is unknown about the condition, but a study of 12- to 18-year-olds shows that the two-dose Pfizer vaccine was 91% effective at preventing MIS-C, and 95% of those hospitalized for MIS-C were not vaccinated, according to the American Medical Association.
In the alpha and delta phases of the virus, Clark said she saw more lower respiratory inflammation with MIS-C, which is why many often struggled to breathe. With omicron, more are affected in the upper airways. There are fewer ICU cases, but a bigger group is experiencing “super bad flus or head colds,” Clark said.
Not specifically tied to the omicron variant, but the CDC also reports a rise in pediatric type 1 diabetes following COVID-19 infection. Nearly one half of children under 18 studied had diabetic ketoacidosis, a serious complication of diabetes that can be life-threatening, at or around the time of diagnosis.
Related:Where, when you can expect to pick up N95 masks in the Coachella Valley
More: Should you report your at-home COVID-19 test results? Here’s what state public health says
With troubling information emerging, the push for vaccination continues. If families are still hesitant about vaccinating their children, Clark encourages them to seek information from valid sources, speak to their health care providers and be open to the data.
“One of the things that we hear most frequently from families is ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen in x, y or z years from now, so I want to wait and see,'” Clark said. “We wish we all had a crystal ball but we don’t. What we do know is that we’ve been doing this for two years and we know the number of children who are vaccinated and the number of children who are unvaccinated … and the hospital rates in those two populations are drastically different.”
There have been more than 1,000 reports of cases of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the lining outside the heart) in young males receiving mRNA (Pfizer and Moderna) vaccines, according to the CDC. But a study from Israel shows that the estimated incidence of myocarditis from vaccination is 2.13 cases per 100,000, while the rate from COVID-19 infection is 150 cases per 100,000, according to the CDC.
Expecting or breastfeeding mothers are also encouraged to get vaccinated. Pregnancy increases the risk of severe COVID-19 disease and life-threatening pregnancy complications, according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology Medical. Researchers in Scotland also reported that unvaccinated pregnant women with COVID-19 were at greater risk of losing their fetuses and babies in the womb or the first few weeks after birth, the New York Times reports.
Various studies have found that vaccinated women have passed on antibodies to their infants through breastfeeding.
“The best way to protect your youngest children is actually to vaccinate yourself,” Clark said.
Related: Nearly 71% of Coachella Valley’s total population fully vaccinated
More: Desert Regional Medical Center nurses rally over staffing shortages, conditions
Children under 5 years of age are currently not eligible for any COVID-19 vaccines. Pfizer and BioNTech are currently in clinical trials for their vaccine for children 6 months to 4 and are expected to submit their findings the first half of 2022.
Ema Sasic covers health in the Coachella Valley. Reach her at ema.sasic@desertsun.com or on Twitter @ema_sasic.
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