Vaccinating kids against COVID-19 likely to enhance school safety

Whether and how children can return to classrooms has been hotly debated during the past year. Requiring teachers and students to wear masks, spreading out kids in classrooms and preventing students and staff from coming to school when sick has made most schools safe. With many teachers now vaccinated and more children now eligible, it’s expected that classrooms will be even safer when school resumes in the fall, according to pediatric infectious disease specialist Jason Newland, MD, a professor of pediatrics. As Newland works to prevent infections in kids, his colleague, pediatric cardiologist William B. Orr, MD, an assistant professor of pediatrics, has been treating children with COVID-19 who have become seriously ill and required hospitalization. Much of Orr’s focus has involved children with MIS-C (Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children), a complication related to COVID-19. Those kids can develop issues related to the heart, the gastrointestinal tract, the nervous system or other organs following COVID-19 infection. Both Newland and Orr said they believe hospitalizations will be much less common for children as more are able to be vaccinated.

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