Sabrina Eliason , Tehseen Ladha , Sam Wong -
Yesterday
Edmonton Journal
As the Alberta Medical Association Section of Pediatrics, we are very disappointed and concerned about the plan announced by our premier on Feb. 8, to lift public health protections. This announcement comes while our health system remains under significant strain due to staff shortages, test positivity rates are still in the 30-per-cent range and there continues to be unsustainably high rates of daily hospitalizations, ICU admission and deaths due to COVID.
© Provided by Edmonton Journal
As the Alberta Medical Association Section of Pediatrics, we are very disappointed and concerned about the plan announced by our premier on Feb. 8, to lift public health protections. This announcement comes while our health system remains under significant strain due to staff shortages, test positivity rates are still in the 30-per-cent range and there continues to be unsustainably high rates of daily hospitalizations, ICU admission and deaths due to COVID.
© Provided by Edmonton Journal
Children in the school yard outside Garneau School in Edmonton on Thursday January 20, 2022.
Lifting these protections now will only increase the strain on our already strained health-care system. Meanwhile, the re-allocation of resources to meet the “surge” demand of COVID hospitalizations has come and will continue to come at the cost of health-care services for other patients, including children.
Although COVID is often milder in children, it is not harmless. We have seen increased hospitalizations in extremely young children with COVID and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) in older children. We have watched pediatric ICU beds be used for adult ICU patients. We have seen youth suffering prolonged symptoms after mild COVID infections.
We have seen therapies for children with disabilities cancelled due to redeployment of staff to support the surge of COVID patients. We have supported children experiencing mental health and developmental issues exacerbated by the unmitigated spread of COVID causing school and activity disruptions. We have been left wondering what resources will be left for children with complex developmental, medical and mental health conditions and what impact the lack of access to these supports will be on their lives and their families.
There have been significant negative impacts on children and their families, not only from the public health measures themselves, but from having to put these measures in place because of uncontrolled spread of COVID due to premature removal of public health protections by our government.
We have watched for two years as the health of children has been put behind the health of adults with COVID. The cost of this is reaching a point of crisis and will not improve if COVID cases continue to rise. Our government’s plans for removal of public health measures have come without the necessary commitment to investing in protecting our children and communities.
We need our government to prioritize the community accessibility of COVID vaccination for all eligible children along with concomitant education and awareness campaigns. This could happen through school vaccination sites, public-transit accessible vaccine sites and community outreach programs. We need a strong and clear message from our government that acknowledges the evidence that COVID vaccines are safe and one of the best ways to protect our children.
We also need a commitment to other evidence-based mitigations such as masking in schools to reduce the transmission of COVID amongst children and their families. There is currently no evidence that masking in these situations negatively impacts children’s mental health or development.
Until we are at a point where larger numbers of children are vaccinated and case rates are consistently low, it is vitally important that we keep in place the protections that have led to Canada having one of the lowest death rates per capita among the developed countries of the world. This means continuance of masking in indoor spaces including schools, optimizing ventilation, isolating when symptomatic or COVID positive, using rapid tests appropriately, and getting booster doses of the COVID vaccine when eligible.
Without adequate control of COVID infection rates, families risk daycare shut-downs, school closures and activity cancellations due to outbreaks and health resources will continue to be redirected from children to treat hospitalized COVID patients. Rampant COVID transmission in the community is a major factor in families’ decisions to keep their children home to avoid exposures that may occur via activities and socialization.
The long-term health and development of Alberta’s children is dependent on consistent and adequate mitigation of COVID. It is time for our province to truly start putting children first.
Authored by: Drs. Sabrina Eliason and Tehseen Ladha, members-at-large, and Dr. Sam Wong, current president of the AMA Section of Pediatrics executive. The AMA Section of Pediatrics represents the almost 300 doctors who care for children in Alberta.
Co-signed by: Drs. Bonnie Islam, Mary-Pat Schlosser, Hasu Rajani, Christopher W. Andrews, Catherine Macneil, Charlotte Foulston, Natalie Forbes, Kyle McKenzie, Elsa Fiedrich, Breanne Frohlich, Juan Pablo Appendino.
Lifting these protections now will only increase the strain on our already strained health-care system. Meanwhile, the re-allocation of resources to meet the “surge” demand of COVID hospitalizations has come and will continue to come at the cost of health-care services for other patients, including children.
Although COVID is often milder in children, it is not harmless. We have seen increased hospitalizations in extremely young children with COVID and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) in older children. We have watched pediatric ICU beds be used for adult ICU patients. We have seen youth suffering prolonged symptoms after mild COVID infections.
We have seen therapies for children with disabilities cancelled due to redeployment of staff to support the surge of COVID patients. We have supported children experiencing mental health and developmental issues exacerbated by the unmitigated spread of COVID causing school and activity disruptions. We have been left wondering what resources will be left for children with complex developmental, medical and mental health conditions and what impact the lack of access to these supports will be on their lives and their families.
There have been significant negative impacts on children and their families, not only from the public health measures themselves, but from having to put these measures in place because of uncontrolled spread of COVID due to premature removal of public health protections by our government.
We have watched for two years as the health of children has been put behind the health of adults with COVID. The cost of this is reaching a point of crisis and will not improve if COVID cases continue to rise. Our government’s plans for removal of public health measures have come without the necessary commitment to investing in protecting our children and communities.
We need our government to prioritize the community accessibility of COVID vaccination for all eligible children along with concomitant education and awareness campaigns. This could happen through school vaccination sites, public-transit accessible vaccine sites and community outreach programs. We need a strong and clear message from our government that acknowledges the evidence that COVID vaccines are safe and one of the best ways to protect our children.
We also need a commitment to other evidence-based mitigations such as masking in schools to reduce the transmission of COVID amongst children and their families. There is currently no evidence that masking in these situations negatively impacts children’s mental health or development.
Until we are at a point where larger numbers of children are vaccinated and case rates are consistently low, it is vitally important that we keep in place the protections that have led to Canada having one of the lowest death rates per capita among the developed countries of the world. This means continuance of masking in indoor spaces including schools, optimizing ventilation, isolating when symptomatic or COVID positive, using rapid tests appropriately, and getting booster doses of the COVID vaccine when eligible.
Without adequate control of COVID infection rates, families risk daycare shut-downs, school closures and activity cancellations due to outbreaks and health resources will continue to be redirected from children to treat hospitalized COVID patients. Rampant COVID transmission in the community is a major factor in families’ decisions to keep their children home to avoid exposures that may occur via activities and socialization.
The long-term health and development of Alberta’s children is dependent on consistent and adequate mitigation of COVID. It is time for our province to truly start putting children first.
Authored by: Drs. Sabrina Eliason and Tehseen Ladha, members-at-large, and Dr. Sam Wong, current president of the AMA Section of Pediatrics executive. The AMA Section of Pediatrics represents the almost 300 doctors who care for children in Alberta.
Co-signed by: Drs. Bonnie Islam, Mary-Pat Schlosser, Hasu Rajani, Christopher W. Andrews, Catherine Macneil, Charlotte Foulston, Natalie Forbes, Kyle McKenzie, Elsa Fiedrich, Breanne Frohlich, Juan Pablo Appendino.
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