A growing number of children are getting infected with the coronavirus and are showing symptoms.
According to the state health department, seven children have died since they pandemic began.
More than 350,000 have now tested positive and there is an uptick in the number of COVID-19 positive kids who develop a frightening side-effect doctors call an inflammatory syndrome.
Right now, no one under 16 can get vaccinated against the coronavirus. But trials for children are underway to see if that can change, and one local mom who lived some terrifying moments, is all for it.
“He had a really bad sore throat for a couple of days. He described it as a stab. Like someone was stabbing him in the throat,” said Edit Gonzalez whose family, including children, were infected with the coronavirus.
Thankfully, their infections don't appear to be any lasting effects. But doctors say more and more children -- primarily Latino children -- are getting COVID-19 and then getting a rare condition called multi-symptom inflammatory symptoms (MIS-C).
When a child gets MIS-C, body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain. And, what's worse is it can show up even in children who got COVID but showed no symptoms.
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“We are seeing other cases of this,” said Dr. Claire del Signore. “There is certainly an increase in numbers across California.”
Del Signore is a pediatrician in San Jose and says her practice hasn’t seen many COVID-postive children and wants more to see more medical research to see the impact of children receiving the coronavirus vaccine.
“Until I see testing enough in young children, and they need volunteers for that, we cannot safely know if it's ok to give it to certain age groups until we have that information,” she said.
The Gonzalez family says they’re all for vaccinating the children.
“If we do start getting vaccines for kids that’s also working well, yes, we want to get back to normal as fast as we can,” Gonzalez said.
