FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - With classes resuming in the next few weeks, a sharp increase in pediatric COVID-19 patients at South Florida hospitals has drawn concerns from officials and parents.
Dr. Marcos Mestre, vice president and chief medical officer at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Southwest Miami-Dade, on Thursday, discussed the spike in cases among children as young as 2 weeks old.
“We’re definitely seeing an increase in the volume of patients in our emergency departments, in our urgent care centers and throughout the city,” he said.
Mestre said the predominant number of patients have contracted the highly contagious delta variant.
“Just to give you an idea, in the whole month of June, we only saw 17 [COVID] patients in the hospital here at Nicklaus Children’s, and we’re already at 25 for the month of August,” he said.
Outgoing Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said that with the start of the school year fast approaching, and with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ban on mask mandates, the current increase could be a problem.
“This isn’t really about politics. It’s about science, it’s about health, safety, and if we’re not serious about that, people die from this,” he said.
“I don’t understand why our governor is having us not wear masks,” said a Broward student. “It should be mandatory to wear masks at school since you’re sending us all back.”
The Broward County School Board will meet next week to discuss whether or not to continue its current mask wearing policy.
“This is a policy we had in place. We’re not changing our policy, and that’s it,” said school board member Debra Hixon, “and the governor will do what he feels is right that he needs to do.”
“When our teachers get impacted, and they’re in the hospital, or they’re sitting at home, it doesn’t matter if your kids come to school with a mask or not, because there won’t be a teacher there,” said Runcie, “so this is not just about the kids, it’s about the whole entire education community.”
Runcie said BCPS will follow the advice of the medical experts.
“What we’re recommending is the same that’s being recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], which is those children 2 and above should wear masks when they’re indoors,” said Mestre. “The Delta variant is a lot more contagious than what we saw initially, so hence, that’s why we’re making the recommendations. Thankfully, I don’t want parents to panic, most children that get a COVID infection will do well.”
DeSantis has threatened to withhold funding from school districts that make mask wearing mandatory. However, lawyers for Broward and other school districts are looking into whether or not this is even legal.
“You can always find a way to address the money issues, but when somebody’s health is destroyed, you can’t bring that back,” said Runcie.
The Florida Department of Education will hold an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss DeSantis’ mask mandate ban and whether or not to give parents a voucher if they choose not to send their child to a school that makes mask wearing mandatory.
Doctors advise parents who plan to send their children back to school for in-person learning to get vaccinated if they haven’t already done so, and they urge parents to just put a mask on their children when they’re about to enter a school building.
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