CU Anschutz In The News

"I've been trying to shout it from the rooftops," to get parents to take their kids in for routine vaccines, says Dr. Sean O'Leary, professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and vice chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics. Many parents worry about COVID-19 and when they can vaccinate their kids against it, O'Leary notes. But he says, "Frankly, a lot of the diseases that we vaccinate kids for are more severe in children than COVID, and so the last thing we want as we reenter the school year is outbreaks of these other vaccine-preventable diseases."

Normal activities will become safe again when the vaccination rate is high and the number of new infections is low, said Beth Carlton, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health. “We need to rely on more than just vaccines,” she said, noting that while they’re highly effective at preventing severe illness and death, breakthrough infections will increase when the rate of transmission is high like it is now.

Professor of immunology at CU Anschutz Medical Campus Dr. Ross Kedl said children remain at low risk for severe cases of COVID-19 and he is not concerned about new emerging variants in the younger school aged children. "It’s different in influenza or something like that where flu really does spread much more rapidly and has much more severe consequences in kids that are much younger," he said.

In the week ending Sunday, new hospital admissions increased 38% compared to the previous week. They had risen 17% in the week ending Aug. 1 and 10% in the week ending July 24. It’s a worrisome trend, said Talia Quandelacy, an assistant professor at the Colorado School of Public Health. “If you weren’t masking indoors, in particular in crowded spaces, it would be a good idea,” she said.

The Colorado School of Public Health has been modeling COVID-19 data since the start of the pandemic. Thursday, we talked with associate professor Elizabeth Carlton about what modeling shows for Colorado in the next few months. Professor Carlton said there are projections that put Colorado in a scenario where we could see another peak in hospitalizations akin to what happened in December 2020.

“That is absolutely a concern as we move into this coming school year that we have this more contagious variant, and this is a group of individuals who won’t be eligible for vaccination yet,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus and vice chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases.

"Given the large numbers of unvaccinated school children (including all kids under 12 years), I believe that a universal mask-wearing policy in schools will be a very beneficial and low-cost strategy to reduce transmission," said Glen Mays, also of the Colorado School of Public Health. "I anticipate that many school districts will need to consider such a policy this fall, despite the fact that mask requirements remain unpopular among some groups."

Though it doesn’t seem to cause more severe illness (in either children or adults), Dr. Sean O’Leary, a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, says he’s concerned that kids could carry the virus back home to vulnerable family members, or in the other direction, putting teachers and staffers at risk. “I think it has the potential to be bad,” he says.