CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — COVID-19 cases among younger kids ramped up in the Coastal Bend and health officials worried what that would mean before the Halloween weekend.
"We're starting to see some higher numbers in the ages of what we call the pediatric group, 18 and younger," said Annette Rodriguez, the public health director for Nueces County Corpus Christi Health District.
The district reported that coronavirus cases among kids were rising by nearly 1.5 percent. However, even though cases for kids were increasing, hospitalizations remained low.
"Here at Driscoll, the number of admissions is very low, right now, very, very low. We haven't seen an increase, but we never saw any significant number of children, even in the peak of the pandemic of our county," said Dr. Jaime Fergie, a doctor and the director of infectious diseases at Driscoll Children's Hospital.
"They certainly can get infected, we know that, they can get infected, but they rarely get sick."
Dr. Fergie said kids have proven to be less susceptible to the virus and show little to no symptoms, however, he was still concerned for holidays like Halloween.
"For the children, again, nothing is going to change but for adults, people at high risk, people over 65, those who have diabetes, those who have obesity, those are the people who need to be concerned about getting together at large family groups," said Dr. Fergie.
Dr. Fergie said parents and young adults needed to decide on the risk they were willing to take, considering they'd be the one's who will feel the symptoms and have a higher chance of spreading the virus.
"The majority of the transmission is from adult to child, not from child to adult," said Dr. Fergie.
Although alternatives like trunk-or-treats gained more popularity, the recommended safety precautions remained the same.
"Be very careful, try to limit social contact, limit the people you're going to be with and wear masks as much as possible," said Dr. Fergie.
For the latest updates on coronavirus in the Coastal Bend, click here.
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