ROYAL OAK, Mich. (WXYZ) — As of early January, just over 20% of eligible children aged 5-11 received their COIVD-19 vaccine according to Dr. Bishara Freij the Chief of pediatric infectious disease at Beaumont children hospital.
"It makes me sad sometimes it makes me upset,” says Dr. Freij who claims not a day goes by without his team treating a child severely sick from COVID. It's a level of illness he says would most likely be avoided if they were vaccinated.
“It really breaks my heart because I look at these kids and I think, these kids should not be in this ICU bed,” says Dr. Freij.
Studies show, the vast majority of children who get sick with COVID will not need medical intervention. In fact, Dr. Freij says only two percent will go to the hospital or urgent care, but there are three categories of patients he see’s consistently.
The first category according to Dr. Freij is young teens, who are typically overweight. They are treated for severe acute covid causing respiratory failure. The treatment typically includes oxygen and steroids.
The second category is Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MSIS) in children. Doctor Freij says kids will either have mild or no symptoms initially, but 2-4 weeks after exposure they develop a high fever paired with vomiting or diarrhea and an inflamed heart.
“Those kids are very ill,” says Dr. Ferij.
It’s likely Kristian Whisby’s 9-year-old son fell into this group. He contracted COVID last year. Whisby describes it as a terrifying period of time, taking months for him to fully recover.
"We had several 911 calls, shortness of breath, he couldn’t breathe, vomiting couldn’t keep any food down, vomiting, high fever body aches,” says Whisby.
“For the vast majority if they were vaccinated, this would not have happened,” says Dr. Freij.
Whisby says, the vaccine wasn’t available for children her sons age when he got sick, but now her entire household is vaccinated and she encourages others to do the same.
The third category is children who are at the hospital for something else, get tested for COVID and are positive. Symptoms are typically mild.
Doctor Freij says it's still unknown why some kids get more sick with COVID than others but there are many Doctors studying that right now in an attempt to connect the dots.
