Hey NAPA families. We have been actively monitoring the COVID-19 situation. There are some items that we have learned recently that we thought would be worth sharing. Like everything with this virus, the information is coming at us very quickly and is likely to change. First, the incubation period is now thought to be more like 4-6 days instead of up to 14 days that we have been hearing about. Second, spread amongst asymptomatic people is rare. That means that if someone has COVID-19 and they do not have any symptoms, then there is a low likelihood that they will transmit it to others. And third, the infection in children over 1 year old tends to be mild. Neonates and infants are still considered a higher risk category (but less than adults). Looking at 2,148 children under 18 years old, 4% were asymptomatic, 51% had mild disease, 39% had moderate disease, and 6% were severe/critical. A 14-year old boy died from the virus. By comparison, 18.5% of the adult cases are severe/critical.
What should you do now? Social distancing is helping. Wash your hands regularly with soap and hot water. Self isolate if you begin to exhibit symptoms like a fever or cough. We are trying to decrease the number of patients getting sick at the same time. If we can slow down the spread and draw it out over a longer period of time, we will not overwhelm the ICU capabilities of our hospitals.
What are we doing in the office? We are working hard to keep the office clean. We are sanitizing rooms in between every patient we see with a deep cleaning technique. We are seeing only checkups in the morning to keep the office clean, sick visits only in the afternoon. We are keeping the waiting room empty. We ask that if you or your child has a fever and cough to call us first and not come into the office as we want to avoid contaminating the office.
Here are some additional online resources that we recommend checking out as well:
This is from Johns Hopkins Hospital and has a very nice map with cumulative information about the location of the virus:
This website is sponsored by the American Academy of Pediatrics:
https://www.healthychildren.org/
This website is from the CDC and has lots of information about COVID19:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html