New York Pediatrician Gives Tips to Protect Children from COVID

New cases of COVID are spreading among children at alarming rates. A New York Pediatrician shared tips on how to protect unvaccinated children from the highly contagious Delta variant.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, recently warned children are at higher risk for infection from the highly contagious Delta variant.

The American Academy of Pediatrics reports there were nearly 94,000 new COVID cases in children across the U.S. in the past week, marking about 15 percent of all new cases.

Dr. Kristen Navarette recently reached out to Hudson Valley Post to share some tips to protect children.

"There is a lot of COVID-19 safety guidance for adults but not for children under 12," Navarette said.

Navarette the Medical Director at MVP Health Care and a New York pediatrician shared with Hudson Valley Post four strategies for protecting unvaccinated children

1. Practice Cocooning: Cocooning is a vaccination strategy to protect vulnerable populations such as children who are not yet vaccinated from an infectious disease by surrounding them with people who are. This helps limit transmission and ensure the safety of families and especially vulnerable children.
2. Frequent Testing: Since the beginning of the pandemic, frequent testing has played a critical role in identifying the safety and risk factors of communities. Now, testing is a vital component in safely reopening schools and summer camps, easing anxiety and providing peace of mind to parents across the country. Make sure to get your child tested for COVID-19 if they show any new symptoms, such as fever, feeling unusually tired, dry cough, headache, stomachache or loss of taste or smell, and keep them home from summer camp and other social activities until they have a negative test.
3. Continue Wearing a Mask: Although COVID-19 vaccines are effective at keeping you from getting sick, scientists are still learning how well vaccines prevent you from spreading the virus to others, even if you do not have symptoms. If your child is not vaccinated yet, continue wearing a mask when going outside the home, such as to the grocery store, at work, and when attending indoor social gatherings.
4. Stay Within your Pod: Over the past year, people created COVID pods, a strategy to stay safe while socializing during the pandemic. If your family is within a pod, continue spending time with only those individuals. It will help limit the spread of germs from person to person, providing a security net as we patiently wait for the vaccines to be approved for children of all ages.

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