HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Catching Covid-19 is practically inevitable, one local pediatrician said during a town hall meeting with parents regarding vaccination for children age 5 to 11.
“At this point with the pandemic, it’s not a question of if you’re going to get Covid-19, but when,” said Dr. Michael Um. “Are you going to get Covid before you get the vaccine? Or after the vaccine?”
He and fellow pediatricians participating in the town hall, organized by the Archdiocese of Agana and American Medical Center, are encouraging parents to get their children vaccinated before they catch the virus that causes Covid-19.
Cathy Rivera Castro, of the archdiocese, said the organizations wanted to provide a venue where parents could ask questions about the vaccine so they can make informed decisions on whether it’s right for them. Father Duenas Memorial School, a Catholic high school on Guam, is hosting an upcoming vaccination clinic for the 5-11 age group.
Local pediatrician Dr. Amanda del Rosario said since the federal government approved the pediatric vaccine now being administered in Guam, one of the most common questions is whether she would recommend it.
“I can say on behalf of our entire pediatrician group on island that we 100% wholeheartedly recommend that the vaccine be given,” she said. “We know that based on the tens of thousands of younger kids that have received the vaccine at this point, that it is indeed safe. And not only that, it’s effective — over 90% effective at not just protecting from Covid but also from the delta variant, which, as we know, has been responsible for this most recent surge in cases.”
While not all parents were happy with the recommendation, a few expressed their appreciation to the archdiocese for organizing the open forum and to the doctors for their time answering questions and clarifying Department of Public Health and Social Services announcements.
While the number of new Covid-19 cases reported daily has been declining, Guam’s public health officials have said the numbers are higher than ideal and that Guam remains in the middle of the surge that started during the summer.
On Thursday, DPHSS reported 27 new cases of Covid-19 and the Joint Information Center reported 2,192 people were in active isolation. Additionally, there were 34 people in hospitals who tested positive for Covid-19 — two of those patients were children.
Del Rosario and other doctors in the forum also recommended parents talk to their doctors about their children’s overall health and family activities, such as upcoming travel, that could factor into their decisions.
‘A completely different scenario’
Guam’s unique situation, with its geographic location and limited resources, make it all the more necessary for Guamanians of all eligible ages to get vaccinated, they said.
Um said Guam has a limited number of hospital beds and, with the delta variant infecting more children than the original strain, there’s a danger that the island could run out of hospital beds for children. Guam Regional Medical City doesn’t have a pediatric ward and U.S. Naval Hospital Guam is for military personnel, retirees and their families.
One person asked why Guam can’t just buy or make more beds to accommodate the possible increase of ill people.
Dr. Erika Alford said discussions about a “hospital bed” refer not just to the physical bed but to the equipment and the personnel needed to watch over the person in the bed.
“We have a very limited pool of pediatric inpatient nurses. We have a very limited pool of pediatricians. … We do not have pediatric subspecialists on island, with the exception of one. And so we don’t have a pediatric cardiologist, we don’t have an infectious disease specialist, we don’t have a pediatric pulmonologist and we don’t have a pediatric intensive care specialist. And so when we think of that and we think of our children in Guam, is it a completely different scenario from the States? Absolutely,” she said.
“If my kid were that one unlucky kid to get the really bad side effects of Covid, … I don’t have the medical resources on island to rely on in the event that my kid was that one in a million that got sick. And because of that, I chose to vaccinate my kids, … because of the limited resources we have in Guam.”
Highlighting Guam’s situation is a recent case when the island ran out of medication to treat Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children. MIS-C is rare, affecting an estimated rate of 320 children per million cases of Covid-19, doctors said.
In October, Department of Public Health and Social Services doctors confirmed two children were diagnosed with MIS-C at Guam Memorial Hospital, which was running low on intravenous immune globulin, or IVIG. Officials at the time said they were able to get some of the medication from GRMC and Naval Hospital to treat the two boys. But, for at least a couple of days after that, the island was out of IVIG.
Del Rosario said “with just two children diagnosed with MIS-C, … there were serious concerns about what to do in terms of treating the two kids as they waited for the next supply to arrive. Part of the discussion was, ‘How are we going to divvy up the doses?’
“It truly was scrambling to come up with resources to treat these kids with MIS-C in the hospital,” she said.
Common questions
Del Rosario said other common questions include side effects and dosage for younger children.
“It’s really like any other shot. The most common side effect that we can expect are soreness in the arm or muscle that the vaccine was administered into. And some people may feel low-grade illness symptoms, like fevers and maybe some muscle aches. … That tends to be more common with the second dose,” she said, adding that rest and over-the-counter medication such as Tylenol or Motrin will help.
She said, in terms of dosage, it’s about one-third of the dose for adults and older kids.
Um said he’s been asked whether children who have had Covid-19 should be vaccinated. He said the chances of getting reinfected within 90 days is low, so some families may want to wait. However, generally speaking, doctors do recommend kids get vaccinated even if they already have had Covid-19.
Jace Sablan is the first to get the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for children 5 to 11 years old, during the first day of vaccinations for that age group, Tuesday, Nov. 9, at the Northern Region Community Health Center in Dededo. Giving the injection is Rona Santos, a nurse with the Department of Public Health and Social Services.
