Source: India.TV
The lethal second wave in 2021 has left parents looking for information on protecting their children and the steps to take if their child, or a family member, has symptoms of Covid-19, or tests positive. Because once one person has got infected, almost all members of the family have been infected this time around, suggesting high contagion.As the virus continues to change, as a practicing pediatrician, I am seeing 20 to 30 positive kids per week -- with symptoms like cough, fever or chills, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, muscle or body ache, sore throat.
These symptoms are very similar to adults and often confused with cyclical flu which used to be very common around this time of the year. It is already here. Unlike the first wave, now entire households are becoming diseased with the virus and is likely to impact children too.
What should parents do?
Infection in kids are generally not common because they have less ACE2 receptors. But it doesn't mean they won't get infection. But the kind of infection we are seeing in senior people like breathlessness is unlikely to happen in kids -- for various reasons, including less ACE2 receptors in lungs and less morbidity like absence of heart disease, hypertension, obesity etc.
Gujarat saw a similar trend and many newborns were noted to be affected. In first wave, everyone predicted that we are a country with BCG being given that is why we are not being affected, we got the first wave after 2 months of them.
