Confessions of an ICU doctor during COVID

dobro1229 · Jul 7, 2020

BallaDoc said: ↑

interesting question. Anecdotally I have seen families coming into the icu I had a 44 year old die while her son an 18 year old was intubated on the bed next to her. I’ve heard stories about everyone at the house having it. Again anecdotally I would imagine that kids should be able to pass this disease to their parents. Why wouldn’t they it’s a respiratory pathogen and we know it can be transmitted in asymptomatic patients. If you’ve had kids you know if one of those rugrats gets a virus at daycare everyone is getting it and so are the parents. However my beliefs on this matter haven’t held true with new data emerging which I will delve into in a little bit.

First of all the data on children becoming infected from multiple studies across multiple countries show that the rate of infection is much lower in children less than 10. There haven’t been any meta analyses to assess all these trials or if there is inherent bias in these studies but that is what the data states and what I imagine the AAP is basing their statements off of. The thing that has scared me is the spike in cases of Kawasaki’s Something I only saw in med school once but was questioned about multitudes of times. It’s an intense inflammatory response. There was a spike in cases of kids worldwide that led to some papers hypothesizing the incubation period was longer in children. A spike however in this situation was like an increase of 50 cases or so since it is still an incredibly rare disease. I don’t recall the details of those case reports but I remember reading it and saying we had to be more careful with my 2 year old daughter.

i know the AAPs position at this time is to allow students to go back but if you read their position carefully they’re choosing what they think is the lesser of two evils FOR THe KIDS. Their opinion is that the risk of spread between and disease manifestation in children Is less than the risk of losing more social interaction and education. This disease is all about trading risks. Risk vs. benefit of lockdown. Risk va benefit of stressing infrastructure. Risk va benefit of intubation. Risk vs benefit of reopening. Risk vs benefit of school.

I have read their position and to me it is clear that they are stating their position with Their focus being on the sole benefit of children. That is their scope of practice and that is what they are choosing to comment on. They haven’t linked the studies that they are making their claims on but They are easily searchable. An opinion editorial exists of one of the contributors thoughts as well. Their examination of the literature data has revealed that children are not super spreaders, less likely to be infectious, and less likely to be the index case of disease. Again if these studies are valid going forward or not only time will tell but that’s the info we have now. The AAP has stated very clearly that adult to adult transmisision between teachers and workers of schools is something they can’t comment on but they do advise temperature screening limiting sick children to home social distancing Limited use of busses block scheduling and mask covering especially for adults.

from the data it would appear our children are safe and likely will not be the index case or epicenter. But our teachers and educational staff are at increased risk. If they take proper precautions I would imagine they could mitigate risk further. For example no one in my IcU staff has gotten sick yet fingers crossed and we’re literally got our hands in their mouth putting tubes in or on their blood for ivs. So I would imagine if the teaching staff are equipped with adequate ppe and stay their distances they may be able to open.

sorry if I’m waffling. The literature states it is safe for children but to take care as an adult
Click to expand...

Yeah I’m thinking they are right but the health of the teachers would be my biggest concern personally since my wife is one and I know her kids are notoriously disgusting. I think it’ll be detrimental if schools cannot open though and it makes me furious that Abbott and others prioritized bars and indoor dining over schools which is par for the course with the Texas GOP who have a history with education and especially their disrespect of public school teachers (see TRA benefits).

Forums

Confessions of an ICU doctor during COVID

dobro1229 Member

Share This Page

About ClutchFans

Rockets Content

Support ClutchFans!