CDC says COVID-related emergency room visits climbing especially among young children
The CDC is out with a new warning about COVID. Yes, COVID. It says the number of cases is now growing or likely growing in at least 27 states. Yike. And COVID related emergency room visits for young kids. They’re the highest they’ve been since March. We’re joined now by CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. John Leuke. I heard you coughing over there. You okay? You noticed though I went like this. I did notice you. But we are so sick of hearing about CO. How concerned should we be? I think it triggers PTSD for a lot of people. I think you’re exactly right. My patients certainly come in like this. You know, every season we now know that there’s a winter spike and then there’s a summer spike, right? And every year it’s I just looked last night. The number of deaths, the number of hospitalizations is is gradually going down each season. So that’s that’s the good news. But people should not be blas about it. Okay. COVID um you know if it strikes you especially for the vulnerable and we’re talking about very young you know children under the age of four uh the elderly people who are imuninompromised you know there are millions of people who are imuninompromised out there they can really get sick I’ve had patients who who are imuninompromised who get really sick from so what do you attribute this spike to I think it’s just you know there’s a winter it’s complicated about why that is but we see this with a lot of illnesses there’s a winter spike there’s a summer spike and um it’s complicated about why it goes up and why it goes down but Um, you know, one of the things that people are having to grapple with right now is, um, should they be getting vaccinated? Yeah. Um, and and we’re in a in a kind of an odd period right now because the CDC has a little bit of a different recommendation for vaccination than the major societies, you know, like the American College of Obstitricians and Gynecologists, uh, who say that peu pregnant women should get vaccinated because the baby when the baby is born from like 0 to six before they can get a shot, they’re really relying on the mother’s immunity, right? the mother has the antibodies, it goes through the placenta and then the baby has some protection. And so they’re saying, “Look, you should get vaccinated.” The CDC, but they took the sk the vaccination schedule off for kids. Well, what they said, yeah, what they said was Secretary Kennedy said, um, it’s now shared decision-making. So that means that go talk to your your clinician about it, which is always a good idea, but it’s a little bit of a different recommendation than just saying go get it. And they’re saying also the same thing for for healthy kids. What are you hearing about these variants uh Nimbus and Stratus? You know, I heard those are two names of CL different types of clouds, right? It’s like the Nimbus 2000. I like this is this like a Harry Potter thing that that was his first broomstick, wasn’t it? But um these are different variants. The good news about the variants I just again checked last night is they still are uh susceptible. They’re no more deadly than say the last variant. We’re seeing these variants all the time. The vaccines that were made for the last season for this season do cover the current variants. So that’s good news. Just I I think the bottom line here is don’t be blaz. It’s the summer. People have all sorts of things. Be careful. Yeah. Uh Dr. Lupuk, thank you very much.
CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook joins “CBS Mornings” to talk about the CDC’s latest alert showing a rise in COVID cases nationwide and the highest rate of ER visits for young kids since March.
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