Here & Now

COVID-19's Growing Toll in Schools

Frederica Freyberg:

And the latest numbers tonight, Milwaukee Public Schools report more than 400 positive COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks among students and staff. A majority of these cases are among students, many of whom are under 12 and cannot be vaccinated. To better understand how COVID-19 is impacting these students, we turn to Dr. Joseph McBride. He’s a pediatric infectious disease specialist at UW Hospital. Thank you very much for your time.

Joseph McBride:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what are you seeing in children with COVID infections in terms of number of new cases?

Joseph McBride:

I think what we’re seeing here in Madison and throughout Wisconsin and throughout the country in general is much like what’s been reported in Milwaukee. We’re seeing increased rates of COVID-19 in children and also a little bit more increased severity in some of the illnesses that are experienced.

Frederica Freyberg:

So how concerning are these numbers of positive cases being reported in places like Milwaukee and, as you say, across the state? How concerning is that?

Joseph McBride:

Yeah. I think it’s really concerning from the standpoint of, as you mentioned, this is a large group of people who are unvaccinated and then therefore unprotected at the same amount of immunity when we compare it to adults. Whenever we have large groups of children unvaccinated together like in a school setting, there will be a risk of transmission that will be higher this year compared to last year, when many of our schools were closed.

Frederica Freyberg:

One thing that stands out is that you just said that these infections are also proving more serious in this pediatric population. Describe that.

Joseph McBride:

So whenever we’re dealing with an infection, there’s always a spectrum of illness. Some people are asymptomatic. Others have mild illness. On the opposite end we have more severe illnesses. So the rate of more moderate to severe illnesses with COVID now, with some of the more recent variants like the Delta variant, is a little bit skewing towards the more moderate to severe at a higher frequency than we did previously earlier in the pandemic.

Frederica Freyberg:

What of breakthrough cases of older, vaccinated children?

Joseph McBride:

So breakthrough cases are cases of COVID-19 in situations where people have received the complete vaccine schedule. And we see breakthrough infections with every single type of vaccine that’s out there. Thankfully, breakthrough cases are less frequent and less severe in general than those in the unvaccinated population and children between the ages of 12 and 18 who have been protected are no different than anybody else. We can see breakthrough infections in this population.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so of those who are not getting the breakthrough, but are the population that is unvaccinated, are these patients being admitted in any number to the hospital?

Joseph McBride:

Yeah. Of course. We do see admissions to the hospital due to COVID-19 in pediatric patients and we did see some last year as well too. There is a slight increase in the frequency of some of these hospital admissions with severe cases. As the virus changes, so does our response and so does our level of admissions, which is again a further reason why we want to be able to give our children immunity when the vaccine should be available to them. In the interim, when we can’t give them the vaccine yet, we as a community, especially adults, have to do everything we can in order to limit the spread of COVID-19, which involves vaccinating ourselves, masks for ourselves and all the other social distancing and infection control methods that are recommended.

Frederica Freyberg:

What should parents know about what to look for in their children who may become infected and when it is potentially serious?

Joseph McBride:

Yeah. So any kind of respiratory virus, whether it’s due to COVID or influenza or things like RSV, which have been around for years, can cause a wide spectrum of symptoms but usually the concerning things regarding children are increased respiratory rate or breathing problems, having a hard time eat and keeping down food, high fevers, being listless. These are some of the symptoms that people should seek out medical care for in the event that their child becomes sick, not just from COVID, but from any kind of upper respiratory viral infection.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do we balance a desire to keep kids in school while also keeping them and school staff safe?

Joseph McBride:

Boy, that is such a challenging question and I myself am a father of two young school-aged children. My wife and I really struggle with this. We do know that in-person school is important. It is something that children really get a benefit out of and the CDC school guidelines really stress this. Our goal is to keep children in school for learning. Not just for their sake but for the parents and working families as well too. So how do we balance this is a challenge. We have to do what we can to mitigate the spread of the virus. Best techniques for those things are mask use, good hand hygiene, having social distancing, following the CDC guidelines for in-person school education, which are widely available and followed by many districts and then of course, again, the big thing is vaccinating those who are eligible to receive the vaccine. If we’re able to get our levels down, then of course there will be less opportunity for kids to be infected

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We leave it there. Dr. Joseph McBride, thanks very much and thank you for your work.

Joseph McBride:

Thank you very much for having me.