Case ballooned in secondary school age children after a blip on school opening, and after a slight dip (?) now up again
Primary children appeared to continue summer trend upwards, with small school re-entry blip. Now maybe oscillating or up?
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This trend is matched by school ages in the @ONS population sampling data
Huge prevalence last week in secondary school age (>8%!), and less than half of this in primary school age
Remember we've been saying for 18m young children are different to older children?
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What's particularly interesting is via @ONS there is very little sign of spill-over from teenagers into older ages (small lift in the 35-49yo?), in spite of more suggestion of this in case data (? increased testing)
Vaccines holding up well - let's hope this continues!
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Now it gets a bit weird. With all these children infected what's happening with hospitalisations?
Not much!
Lowest rates since before "freedom day" for <5s, and after falling on school opening (?) back up to average summer levels for school age (6-17y) and flat
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And just for some context on these rates of admissions, here is what RSV is doing to the <5s compared to #COVID19
On the frontline in ED, #COVID19 fortunately still isn't making a dent on what we see in hospital for kids
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I get asked about PIMS-TS/MIS-C and sadly we don't have current surveillance data - however I can report we are seeing a small trickle of cases, WAY below previous peaks, despite much higher community covid numbers
Same reported in US and Europe - no current explanation
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Summary:
-Cases WAY up in teens
-Little spill over to parents
-Cases remain surprisingly low in primary children
-Hospitalisations low
-PIMS-TS/MIS-C surprisingly low
If anyone has explanations for the weird parts I'd love to hear them!
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After rolling out @PeRSoPPE at @UHSFT we asked HCWs about their experience, and it was much preferred for comfort and feeling of safety over other forms of PPE
Patients (particularly the elderly) preferred it too
(thanks Paul Elkington MBE for being such a glamorous model)
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An economic analysis found that they are more cost efficient than filtration masks, or a mix of filtration + surgical masks over almost all scenarios
Also significantly reducing waste (we can be safe and not kill the turtles🐢)
How worried should we be about #COVID19 in children?
Covid is a threat to children. But it’s not an extraordinary threat. In fact, it’s very ordinary.
In general, the risks from being infected are similar to the other respiratory viruses you probably don’t think much about
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In fact, for smaller children (pre school) viruses like RSV are much more likely to result in hospitalisation and severe disease
We are heaving with RSV and other viruses in children’s ED, but despite record numbers of community cases are still seeing very little #COVID19
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The children who are most likely to suffer from #COVID19 are those who suffer from other resp viruses, such as those with severe neurodisability or lung/heart disease
The risk is similar to that from other viruses, but can be significantly reduced by vaccination if available
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