(JACKSONVILLE, Fla.) — Lila Hartley, from Jacksonville, Florida, took matters into her own hands when she heard Duval County Public Schools wouldn’t require masks for the upcoming school year: She wrote a letter to the school board and superintendent pushing for a mask mandate.
“I would like to encourage the requirement of masks at school in Duval County. Right now, especially while the Delta variant is surging, hospitalizing and killing so many kids. I really believe masks should be required,” she wrote in the letter, which was shared with “Good Morning America.”
“This pandemic is still around,” Lila told “GMA” of why she wrote the letter. “People are still dying and getting sick. Masks save lives, and I don’t want my brother to die.”
While Lila and her family are vaccinated, her brother Will, 10, is too young to receive the vaccine.
“I am so worried that if masks are not required my brother could go to school one day and the next be dying in the hospital,” the letter continued. “We are siblings so we have our rivalries but I don’t know what I would do if he died, especially if it was caused by a place that means so much to him, school.”
Will is also a big supporter of masks and finds himself reminding his friends to wear theirs properly.
“Masks do help us,” he told “GMA.” “I wear my mask because even though the rest of my family is vaccinated, there’s still a chance they can get it.”
Lila emailed a copy of her letter to the board on July 26, and has only heard back from one of the board members so far, she said.
On July 30, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order banning schools from requiring masks. If schools are found to be in violation, they may lose state funding.
According to the governor’s office, the order was in response to “several Florida school boards considering or implementing mask mandates” and to “protect parents’ freedom to choose whether their children wear masks.”
Following the executive order, the Duval County school board held a meeting Aug. 3 to decide on whether it would require masks for the upcoming school year.
Lila and her brother demonstrated with a number of others outside the meeting in favor of masks, while her father, Matt Hartley, and other parents, educators, and medical professionals voiced their opinions inside.
“We wanted to support dad because he’s been working hard,” Lila said.
“We’re fighting for ourselves, but we’re fighting for other kids too,” Hartley told “GMA.” “That’s our M.O. — we love our neighbors.”
The board voted 5-2 in favor of requiring masks with a parental opt-out. Parents will not have to provide a reason for opt-outs.
Hartley said that while the vote did “make things a lot better with masking,” he’s “disappointed” as it still leaves a lot of room for people to not wear them.
In a statement provided to ABC News, Duval County School Board Chairwoman Elizabeth Anderson said, “The Board’s emergency policy decision Tuesday night creates the best balance between our deeply held responsibility for the safety and welfare of students and staff while fully respecting parental choice under the Governor’s order.”
“It’s important to wear masks because it keeps each other safe,” Lila, who one day hopes to be secretary of state, said. “If I’m wearing a mask and the other person is wearing a mask then we’re both safe and not giving each other our germs and possibly COVID.”
(NEW YORK) — As COVID-19 infections surge again in the U.S., health officials are warning of a concerning uptick in pediatric cases and hospitalizations across the country, just as many children head back to the classroom.
With more than 48 million children under 12 still not eligible for vaccination, and less than a third of those ages 12 to 17 fully vaccinated, many youths remain at risk for infection.
Since the onset of the pandemic, nearly 4.3 million children have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, with infection rates growing exponentially in recent weeks.
In the last week, 94,000 new pediatric COVID-19 cases were reported, representing 15% of all reported new infections. Similarly, pediatric COVID-19-related hospital admissions are at their highest level since the onset of the pandemic.
“In the last several weeks, we have seen an enormous increase in the number of positive patients for COVID-19,” Dr. Ronald Ford, chief medical officer at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, told ABC News. “Most of these children are coming from the emergency department, and most of them are not sick enough to come into the hospital. However, those that are admitted are sicker than what we’ve seen before, and many of them are requiring care in our sensitive care units.”
In June, there were just over 20 positive pediatric patients who required care from the hospital’s emergency room team, Ford said.
In the month of July, that number increased to over 200 patients, and in recent weeks, the hospital has already cared for 160 patients, and are “well on our way to breaking July’s record.”
Although severe illness remains uncommon among children, according to experts, there are some children, many with underlying conditions, who are so sick that they require intensive care measures, including ventilation.
The rate of pediatric hospital admissions, in children between the ages of 0 and 17, per capita, is now more than four times higher than it was just a month ago.
The increase in pediatric patients, who are coming in much sicker than those hospitalized with COVID-19 last year, has been an alarming development, said Anthony Sanders, nurse manager in Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Emergency Room. It’s “just a lot scarier this time,” he said.
The country’s largest states — California, Texas and Florida — are each dealing with 100 to 200 pediatric COVID-19 patients, according to federal data.
Sanders said that he is often struck by the fact that it is not only the child who tests positive, but also the entire family.
“I think for us the most striking thing is how the increase in the families that are coming in that are positive, not just the one patient but the parents are positive, all the siblings are positive, that’s been the biggest thing for me that’s super concerning because kids are going back to school,” Sanders said.
At Children’s Hospital New Orleans, a federal team has been called in to assist medical staff who are confronted with a significant surge in pediatric patients.
Dr. Nihal Godiwala, a pediatric intensivist at Children’s Hospital New Orleans, told ABC News that he and his team are exhausted.
“This is a surge of COVID happening, and it’s totally preventable, and that’s why it’s been so frustrating for everyone here,” Godiwala told ABC News. “It’s really taking a toll on everybody at this point.”
According to the nearly two dozen states that reported pediatric hospitalizations to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, 0.1% to 1.9% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in hospitalization. Similarly, in states that reported virus-related deaths by age, 0.00% to 0.03% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death.
However, even for those who may not become severely ill from COVID-19, experts say there is an urgent need to collect more data on long-term impacts of the pandemic on children, including the long-term physical impacts of the virus.
Thus, many of these front-line workers are urging that proper precautions be taken, beginning with wearing masks, particularly in large settings, such as schools.
For children still ineligible for the vaccine, masking will be critical in the months to come, Ford said.
“The best thing you can do to protect your child is to keep them away from the virus,” Ford added. “Masking has been shown to reduce the incidence of transmission and reduce the chances of your children getting COVID-19. So, first and foremost masking is really going to be one of the best defenses we have.”
Getting eligible children vaccinated will also play a crucial role in keeping more children out of the hospital, added Dr. Nick Hysmith, medical director of infection prevention at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
“The majority of the patients who have been admitted, are between 10 and 13 years of age, which puts them right at or just below the age of vaccination,” said Hysmith. “This is why it is critically important for adults and children to get vaccinated as soon as possible.”
For those who are still hesitant about getting the vaccine, Godiwala pleaded for them “to stop thinking about yourself and think about others,” such as medically fragile children, the immunocompromised and the population under 12 not yet eligible for a vaccine.
“The vaccine is a lifeline to getting out of COVID and out of this mess,” said Godiwala.
(NEW YORK) — As the number of COVID-19 infections surges across the United States, with unvaccinated children among the most vulnerable, parents across the country are left wondering what decisions to make to keep their families safe.
Adding to the confusion is the fact that the COVID-19 surge, spurred on by the delta variant, is happening as millions of children are heading back to school, forcing kids to brace, along with parents and teachers, for yet another unpredictable, unprecedented school year.
“The way to think about this is, this is a rapidly evolving and dynamically changing situation,” Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News’ chief medical correspondent and a board-certified OBGYN, said. “It requires flexibility and patience and resilience and an open-mindedness to use new data, new information, new knowledge to affect a better health outcome, not only for us as individuals or our children, but for those people around us.”
Ashton, a mother of two college-aged children, said she looks at the latest COVID-19 data not only as a medical doctor, but also as a mother looking out for her children.
“I wear multiple hats,” she said. “I’m speaking to my own children about their behavior, and even though they are both fully vaccinated, what steps can they take to lower their risk as low as possible?”
Here are Ashton’s answers to five of the most pressing questions from parents amid the COVID-19 surge.
1. Why does it seem children are more vulnerable to COVID-19 now, amid the delta variant?
Viruses such as COVID-19 stay alive in their hosts, in this case humans, by mutating, which is what has created the delta variant, according to Ashton.
“The delta variant is one of several variants, you could also think about it as a mutation, compared to the novel strain of the coronavirus,” she said. “And right now, this delta variant definitely appears to be significantly more transmissible … and there is a suggestion that it may be causing more severe illness.”
Currently, only children ages 12 and older are eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. Among children younger than 12 and children of any age who are not vaccinated, the data shows an “almost exponential increase” in the number of pediatric cases of COVID-19, according to Ashton.
“The majority [of the cases], 80-90%, are thought to be the delta variant,” she said. “It is unclear at this point if the pediatric age group is more susceptible to the delta variant or if this is just the delta variant doing its thing and attacking the most vulnerable population, which is, in this case unvaccinated children.”
2. Why is there a renewed call for people, particularly children, to wear face masks?
Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed its mask guidance and recommended that schools embrace universal masks, backtracking on an earlier recommendation that vaccinated students and staff could go without masks indoors.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), an organization of nearly 70,000 pediatricians, has also called for schools to enforce universal masking mandates.
The reason, according to Ashton, has to do with how much more transmissible the delta variant is than other strains of COVID-19.
“[The CDC] has done outbreak investigations using delta variant data and they have found that the viral load, or the amount of virus that is shed by someone who is vaccinated compared to someone who is unvaccinated, if they’re infected with the delta variant, is largely the same,” Ashton said. “There is very little risk of recommending children of this age group wearing a face covering, and we have seen the impact positive impact of benefits in reducing transmission and infection rates.”
She continued, “It’s always better, especially in the setting of a dramatic increase in case numbers, that we do more and not less, and that’s why you’re seeing these recommendations from the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics.”
The need for face mask wearing extends beyond school to family interactions, like when an unvaccinated child interacts with vaccinated grandparents, for example, according to Ashton.
Medical experts also recommend that unvaccinated people, including children, wear face masks in indoor settings and follow other guidelines, like social distancing and hand washing. They also recommend that families who may have children of different ages who are vaccinated and unvaccinated all wear face masks when in indoor settings like grocery stores and schools.
3. How do I know what activities are safe for my children?
Ashton said parents can consider six factors when deciding what activities are safe for their children: Time, space, people, place, vaccination status and mask wearing.
1. Time: “Will your child be in a given environment for a prolonged period of time. Right now, that number, according to the CDC, is set at 15 minutes cumulative time in 24 hours. We know that the more time exposure, the higher the risk.”
2. Space: “How much space will there be between your child and the people that your child will be around? We know three to six feet right now is kind of the number whereby the risk goes up if you’re in that area. It goes down if you’re greater than six feet away, so that’s important.”
3. People: “How much space there is around people in that environment? When you take into account those parameters, that can help you stratify risk.”
4. Place: “Is there ventilation where [your] children are going to be? Is it an indoor setting, which we know has a higher risk in general? Or is it an outdoor setting, where there is a better wind or ventilation? That is very important.”
5. Vaccination status: “Certainly an option for some parents, depending on the age of their children, is to only put their children in environments where they know that the majority or all of the people in that environment are fully vaccinated. That might not be possible if you’re talking about children under the age of 12.”
6. Mask wearing: “That is a variable that is under our control. So even if everyone is not masked, if your child is masked, that can add some degree of added protection.”
4. Why do we seem to have taken several steps backwards in the pandemic?
“We are still learning about this virus,” said Ashton, responding to parents who may be frustrated by the pace of progress more than one year into the pandemic. “We’re still learning about different populations and their risk to the virus and to different variants every single day.”
“As we learn more, we have to maintain the ability to pivot and adapt our behavior, because if you look at this pandemic, and certainly what’s going on right now, there are really just two variables at play,” she said. “There’s the way the virus is behaving, and there’s the way human beings are behaving. It’s challenging enough if one of those variables is changing, but if both are changing at the same time, it can really be a moving target of sorts.”
5. Is the COVID-19 vaccine worth getting now amid the delta variant?
Absolutely, according to Ashton.
“It is critically important to understand that the goal of these vaccines is to save lives and reduce the risk of hospitalizations,” said Ashton. “And even amongst the delta variant, the vaccines are still largely doing their job.”
“That does not mean 100% of the time. That does not mean there will not be breakthrough cases of people that you know, that I know who become infected with COVID-19,” she said. “What it does mean is that the chance of dying of COVID, requiring ICU admission or hospitalization is dramatically reduced.”
Ashton said people who are getting vaccinated are taking the “most critical step” toward protecting not just themselves but also children who cannot yet be vaccinated.
“We have now nine months of personal experience in this country with hundreds of millions of people having been vaccinated with an excellent safety profile,” she said. “Right now [the vaccine] is the best tool we have so not to use it would be a tremendous missed opportunity.”
(NEW YORK) — The contagious delta variant has complicated the country’s COVID-19 recovery, and health care experts are again suggesting Americans cover their faces.
They’re now advising all people, both unvaccinated and vaccinated, to wear marks in indoor and crowded settings. While the virus may have mutated, medical experts told ABC News people can wear the same masks they’ve used previously.
“The delta variant has raised the stakes,” Maureen Miller, an adjunct associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, told ABC News. “The most important thing about the masks is that you wear them properly.”
Miller, a former epidemiologist for the New York City Health Department, said the N95 is the most secure mask to block out the virus and the variants, but due to higher prices and strained supplies, most people should consider other options, such as the cloth masks and surgical masks found in most stores.
The key thing is making sure the mask completely covers one’s mouth and nose.
“If it’s not covering your nose, or if it’s on your chin, it’s not going to protect you,” Miller added.
Dr. Nicole Iovine, chief hospital epidemiologist with UF Health in Gainesville, Florida, also told ABC News that regular face coverings sold in stores should protect people from the delta variant. Iovine also said double-masking is a good strategy, especially if you’re unvaccinated.
“We should think about it as layers of protection,” she said. “If you’re unvaccinated, the only layer you can have is wearing a mask and staying isolated. If you’re vaccinated, you have strong protection, but with a mask on you’re very, very protected.”
Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said the most important rule about masking during the delta surge is being aware of one’s surroundings. Extra care must be taken in situations in which it’s easier for air droplets to spread.
“If you’re in a crowded, poorly ventilated room, it’s a bigger risk than being out in the woods,” he said.
Miller recommended that vaccinated Americans should be masked up in any location where they’re indoors and may be in contact with someone 12 years old or younger, because they’re not yet vaccine eligible.
“The delta variant threw us a nasty curveball and set us back a step,” Miller said. “All of the things that worked before — social distancing, mask-wearing — are all the things that will get us through this next round.”
Anyone seeking help to schedule a free vaccine appointment can log onto vaccines.gov.
(Hadley and Delaney Robertson) Hadley and Delaney Robertson, 15, created the BraceTrack app to help people who use scoliosis braces
(MIAMI) — Twin sisters Hadley and Delaney Robertson created the BraceTrack app to help people who use scoliosis braces.
The twins, 15, from Miami were both diagnosed with scoliosis at age 12 during their annual checkup in January 2018. According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, scoliosis affects 2-3% of the population, or an estimated 6 to 9 million people, in the United States. It can develop as early as infancy but is typically onset between 10 and 15 years old.
While Delaney’s scoliosis didn’t require treatment, Hadley was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis and the curve of her spine was greater than 20 degrees. Doctors prescribed her a back brace that needed to be worn for 18 hours a day to stop the progression, Hadley told Good Morning America.
“Getting used to wearing a brace can be a little daunting,” Hadley, who was able to stop bracing in June 2020, said. “It’s made of a hard plastic so it can be hot to walk around in on a daily basis and it makes it a little bit difficult to do activities like sports.”
Fortunately, if Hadley needed to take off her brace for any reason, she could wear it for extra hours another day to make up for lost time. The true difficulty was in keeping track of not just those banked hours, but also her daily use.
“One thing about that I found really difficult was figuring out how to track the time that I wore it,” Hadley said. “I tried using a lot of different things. I think we tried using a notepad, a whiteboard, and I even tried looking for an app on the app store to see if there was something that could help me track that but there really wasn’t one so we decided to develop one ourselves.”
That same year, the twins began to research more about scoliosis and app development to figure out what functions would best serve people with the condition. While the girls were previously interested in STEM, they had no prior experience with building an app.
“I think one common misconception around this sort of thing is that you have to know everything about an idea to get into it,” Delaney said. “We really didn’t know everything about app development, or scoliosis even. We just jumped in and started doing a lot of research.”
They then worked with an app developer to make sure they had everything they needed to get the app into app stores across all devices, and it officially launched in May 2019.
“Since BraceTrack is a medical app, it was really important that we were HIPAA compliant and that we had all of those things in order,” Delaney said. “So we found an app developer that would be able to help us actualize all of the vision, all of the designs that we had.”
BraceTrack has several functions to assist users. It can keep track of how long a person wears their brace each day as well as how many banked hours they have, which can be applied to other days where they’ve needed to take their brace off.
It even keeps a log of past history of brace use and creates average trend data based off that. Users also have the ability to create a report with all of the data the app collects, which they can save and send to a doctor, relative, or the like.
“These reports make it more easy to interpret and understand where you could be wearing your brace more or where you’re wearing it a lot,” Delaney said.
The app has been downloaded over 1,000 times, the sisters said, and had around 500 active users last week. Currently, BraceTrack has a 4.9 out of 5-star rating on Apple’s App Store with a myriad of positive reviews.
“We’ve been really amazed by the response we’ve gotten to the app,” Hadley said. “People have said that’s made their brace experience a lot easier and that they’re able to track their time and understand better where they are with that.”
Hadley and Delaney also founded Brace for Impact in January 2021, which is a nonprofit that aims to provide funding for scoliosis braces for children and families who are unable to afford them.
“Bracing journeys can be really expensive since braces cost anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000,” Delaney said, adding that braces are custom-fitted and kids may need multiple braces as they grow.
She continued, “It can be a real financial investment and we were sort of thinking about what we could do to support kids who aren’t able to afford these braces since insurance doesn’t always cover them and they’re really important to your spinal health.”
Brace for Impact has raised $120,000 to date to for four of its partner scoliosis centers: Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, Shriners Hospital for Children, Children’s Diagnostic and Treatment Center and Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.
“We’ve just been really amazed by the places we’ve been working with,” Delaney said. “The doctors and hospital staff that we’ve been talking to about this have just been so amazing and so inspiring.”
“It’s been really amazing so far to watch how Brace for Impact has been able to help kids,” Hadley said.
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden White House is continuing to push back against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABC News reported earlier this week that the state of Florida had requested 300 ventilators from the federal government to help handle the recent increase in COVID-19 related hospitalizations in the state. DeSantis said Tuesday, though, that he was unaware of that request.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded to DeSantis, saying that “as a policy, we don’t send ventilators to states without their interest in receiving the ventilators.”
“I think the most important question here is why would you oppose receiving ventiltators when you clearly need those in your state, given the percentage of hospitalizations that are occuring in Florida,” she added. When asked whether it was possible that DeSantis could have been unaware of the request, she suggested the question was better posed to DeSantis and his office.
The pushback, Psaki said, wasn’t a personal attack on DeSantis.
“Our war is not on [him]. It’s on the virus, which we’re trying to kneecap, and he does not seem to want to participate in the effort to kneecap the virus.”
DeSantis has also instituted a statewide ban on mask requirements. Earlier this week, he suggested that the state Board of Education could withhold pay from school leaders who implement mask mandates for students.
(ATLANTA) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday announced new evidence that strengthens its recommendation for pregnant people to get vaccinated.
“CDC recommends that pregnant people should be vaccinated against COVID-19, based on new evidence about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines. COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for all people 12 years and older, including people who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or trying to get pregnant now or might become pregnant in the future,” the CDC said in a summary of its updated guidance.
The update is based on further research that found pregnant people can receive an mRNA vaccine with no increased risk to themselves or their babies. Getting the vaccine early in pregnancy, including anytime before 20 weeks, poses no increased risk for miscarriage, CDC scientists found, and there are no safety concerns for pregnant people vaccinated late in pregnancy, or for their babies.
Preliminary: New CDC study found no increased risk of miscarriage after #COVID19 vaccination during early pregnancy. These findings can help inform discussions about COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy between pregnant people & healthcare providers: https://t.co/pBVlI6STf8pic.twitter.com/kruX8OJvyl
“In a new analysis of current data from the v-safe pregnancy registry, scientists did not find an increased risk for miscarriage among people who received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine before 20 weeks of pregnancy. This adds to the growing evidence of the safety of these vaccines,” the CDC said.
Until Wednesday, the CDC’s guidance for pregnant women was that they were eligible and could get vaccinated. The new guidance, which is that pregnant women should get vaccinated, is armed with more data and safety assurances. It also comes as the nation sees a significant spike in COVID cases and hospitals near capacity in states like Texas and Florida.
The risk of severe illness from COVID is much higher for pregnant women.
Pregnant women are more likely to be hospitalized and need critical care, including ventilation and admission to the intense care unit (ICU), according to the CDC, and COVID-19 during pregnancy increases the risk for preterm birth of the infants — a birth that is three or more weeks ahead of the expected due date.
Last week, two of the nation’s leading women’s health organizations, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), came out in full support of vaccinations for pregnant women.
“ACOG is recommending vaccination of pregnant individuals because we have evidence of the safe and effective use of the vaccine during pregnancy from many tens of thousands of reporting individuals, because we know that COVID-19 infection puts pregnant people at increased risk of severe complications, and because it is clear from the current vaccination rates that people need to feel confident in the safety and protective value of the COVID-19 vaccines,” ACOG president Dr. J. Martin Tucker said in a statement. “Pregnant individuals should feel confident that choosing COVID-19 vaccination not only protects them but also protects their families and communities.”
Both ACOG, a national membership organization for more than 60,000 OBGYNs, and SMFM, a global organization with more than more than 5,000 physicians, scientists and women’s health professionals, previously recommended that pregnant people have access to vaccines and should “engage in shared decision-making” about the vaccine with their doctors.
Currently, the rate of vaccination among pregnant women is very low. Just 23% of pregnant women received one dose of a vaccine during pregnancy as of July 31, per CDC data.
(NEW YORK) — As the number of pediatric COVID-19 cases continues to rise across the United States, parents are adding face masks to the top of their back-to-school shopping lists.
For the 2021-2022 school year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends all students ages 2 and older wear face masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, an organization of nearly 70,000 pediatricians, has also called on schools to enforce universal masking mandates.
Dr. Allison Bartlett, a pediatric infectious diseases physician at University of Chicago Medicine, is the mother of three sons who are all under age 12 and therefore not yet able to be vaccinated. Bartlett said her sons will be attending in-person school in the fall and will be wearing face masks.
“The whole COVID pandemic has changed with the delta variant and the very high levels of spread,” Bartlett told ABC’s Good Morning America, explaining the increased urgency for mask wearing. “It’s true that most kids don’t get sick, but most kids are not all.”
“I hope that parents understand that no kid likes wearing masks, but the kids that I have interacted with completely understand why they’re doing this, that they’re doing this to protect other people,” she said. “It’s a team effort and everyone has to contribute.”
With unvaccinated children at risk, parents have questions about which types of face masks will keep their children and those around them the safest.
GMA spoke with Bartlett along with Dr. Richard Malley, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Dr. Edith Bracho-Sanchez, a pediatrician at Columbia University, to break down what parents need to know.
1. Children do not need N95, KN95 masks.
All three experts agreed that while N95 and KN95 masks, the types of masks often used in hospitals, provide the best protection, they are not designed nor needed to be used by children.
“N95 masks on a child may not fit and even if they do fit, they’re not as comfortable,” said Malley. “We don’t want to be recommending masks that kids are not willing to wear.”
Both Malley and Bartlett also pointed out N95 and KN95 masks do not work if they do not fit properly, which is why medical staff who wear them undergo intense fitting procedures to make sure they are secure.
“Absolutely an N95 that has been fitted to you provides the most protection. It is true in a healthcare setting but not relevant to kids and schools,” said Bartlett. “They don’t really make child size N95s and unless you’ve gone through the fit testing, it doesn’t really provide any extra protection.”
2. The mask your child will wear is the best mask.
All three experts also agreed that whatever face mask your child is willing to wear indoors at school is the best mask for them, whether it is surgical, cloth or disposable.
“It all comes down to if they’re not going to wear it, it doesn’t matter how high quality the mask is,” said Bartlett, adding as an example, “A well-fitted cloth mask works much better than a poorly-fitted surgical mask.”
Malley suggests letting a child pick out their own masks can help motivate them to wear them and help them feel part of the solution.
“Everybody recognizes that [mask wearing] is an inconvenience for kids, so one way to help the process is to let the child choose,” he said. “Go online or go to the store and have the child select the mask they’re going to wear.”
3. Parents and kids need to regularly check the fit of the mask.
In order for a mask to be effective, it needs to fit over the nose and cover under the chin, according to Malley.
“You want something that covers the nose and mouth and when they speak or laugh, that the mask is not falling off their face,” he said. “You want the jaw to be able to move.”
The face mask should also lay flat on the skin, according to Bartlett.
“In my experience, sometimes the surgical masks tend to gape more at the side because they’re rectangular,” she said. “And sometimes fabric masks work better because they fit better and are softer or more comfortable to fit the face.”
Both experts also noted it is perfectly fine for kids to use clips or bands to relieve pressure on their ears when wearing a mask.
4. Face masks can be re-worn by kids.
“As long as your mask is fitting well, as long as the mask is taut and you have a good fit at the top and at the bottom, you can keep washing it and wearing it,” said Bracho-Sanchez.
5. A sun test can help check the quality of your child’s face mask.
One technique to check the quality of your child’s mask is hold the mask up to the sun. If you can see light through the mask as you hold it stretched, it’s not thick enough.
6. Children will not get sick from wearing face masks.
Concerns about children not being able to breathe while wearing face masks or risking illness from germs in their masks are not founded in science, according to Bartlett.
“There is not a risk to kids of CO2 [carbon dioxide] retention or not getting enough oxygen,” she said. “There is no medical concern to having your face covered with a mask like this.”
When it comes to germs, Bartlett said the masks prevent foreign pathogens from coming in, so the only germs kids could have in their masks are the same germs from their body.
She did suggest though that parents send their children to school with clean, spare masks so they have one on hand to swap out if, for example, they sneeze in the mask.
“Send kids to school with a few masks and, at home, wash masks regularly and have a constant supply of masks on hand,” said Bartlett.
(NEW YORK) — When the pandemic began more than a year ago, the country changed overnight. For teens everywhere, there were a lot of unexpected adjustments — schools closed, extracurricular activities were non-existent and friendships were reduced to Zoom hangouts and virtual TikTok challenges.
The uncertainty of when or if school would resume in person, and then the reality that for many teens, an entire school year would be lost to the pandemic triggered feelings of anxiety, isolation and depression, experts said.
“For the extrovert kids who were used to being out and about, the pandemic brought a lot of anxiety and depression because of decreased social interaction,” Dr. Chioma Iheagwara, division chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Belmont Behavioral Health System, told “Good Morning America.”
On the other hand, “some kids who were struggling or being bullied in school started to thrive when removed from the school environment,” Iheagwara said. “Now they might be fearful about going back to school because the bullying could resume. The pandemic has been challenging for all kids, so how to support each teen really depends on where they started.”
5 tips to help support teens’ transition back to in-school environment
1. Re-establish routines and create a sense of normalcy
Creating routines can help minimize anxiety as teens start the school year.
“Normalize life as much as possible within the confines of dealing with the pandemic,” Iheagwara said. “Normalcy right now might be wearing a mask. Doing activities — enjoying life whenever possible, but that’s normalcy.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, re-establishing routines with sleep, family meals and other social activities, while helping teens to take personal responsibility to protect themselves and others can also help.
2. Look out for changes from baseline
Parents should keep an eye out for new eating habits — eating too much or too little — as well as new social habits or increased sensitivity. All of these could be signs of what mental health experts call “maladaptive” coping strategies, which are short-term attempts to reduce negative symptoms, without addressing or resolving those symptoms.
“If you know your child has anxiety, you know they are still going to have some level of anxiety and you prepare for that. But your teen who now looks more anxious, who’s now more isolated or irritable – if there’s a significant shift from the child that you know, something’s going on there and needs to be explored,” Iheagwara said.
3. Make a plan as a family.
With different rules around mask wearing from school to school, it’s important to know what’s happening in your teen’s school or school system.
Have “real honest and earnest conversations about what’s beneficial for you as a family — you might decide that means wearing masks no matter what the local guidelines.” said Iheagwara. “Discuss with your teen what the school expectations are around infection control and then what the household policies will be, including how you want to handle any illnesses that pop up in the family.”
4. Check in.
The pandemic has been a constantly changing and confusing landscape for over a year. It’s important to create safe spaces for teens to feel all the emotions associated with this experience. The first day of school might look very different a week or a month later, so checking in regularly on how a teen is handling the transition back to in-person learning will be important.
Pediatricians say parents can play an important role in setting the tone in the household. Expressing extreme doom or fear can affect your teen, but together, identifying self-care activities and productive ways to process any stress or anxiety can go a long way. “Keeping a normal routine and keeping lines of communication open between parents and teens is the most important thing,” Iheagwara said.
5. Get extra support.
Families should reach out to their pediatrician, or a mental health provider if available.
“School counselors and school behavioral health counselors can also offer support or additional resources – for emergencies, many states have crisis response centers, as an alternative to a traditional hospital emergency departments,” Iheagwara said.
There are also apps and online resources for teens at the ready that can be beneficial.
Companies like Limbix, Akili and Pear Therapeutics have digital products offering support for several adolescent mental health concerns.
(TUCSON, Ariz.) — A family of colorless and tasteless man-made chemicals — largely unregulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — has become a growing concern for drinking water safety in thousands of American communities, as scientists increasingly see links to liver damage, high cholesterol, weakened immune systems and cancer.
“They basically fulfill the characteristics of a ticking time bomb,” said Dr. Bo Guo, a University of Arizona hydrologist and expert on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which are commonly used in hundreds of consumer products and in firefighting foams, a top source of PFAS contamination.
“They’re very dangerous and they’re migrating very slowly,” Guo said of the heat-resistant chemicals.
While the health concerns around PFAS are not new, greater detection of the chemicals in water systems nationwide in recent years has begun to alarm state and local leaders and prompted Congress to consider urgent action.
Last month, the city of Tucson, Arizona, abruptly shut down a major water treatment facility that delivered drinking water to 60,000 residents because of a sudden surge in PFAS contamination that threatened to overwhelm groundwater filtration systems.
“We don’t have enough confidence to go to drinking water supply at this time,” said John Kmiec, interim director of Tucson Water. “We know that there’s this contamination out there. We don’t know exactly what it does, but we know it’s not going away.”
Some level of PFAS, widely known as “forever chemicals” because they do not break down in the environment, have been found in water samples of 2,790 communities across 49 states, according to an analysis by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), an independent research and consumer watchdog organization pushing to limit exposure to chemicals through water, food and household products.
The contamination is likely much more widespread, experts said, because the EPA does not require testing for the chemicals and has not set a mandatory limit for how much PFAS are safe to drink in tap water.
“It’s likely an issue in every community, and that’s why we need testing to find out,” said Sydney Evans, an EWG water quality analyst who has conducted PFAS testing across the country.
In 2016, concerned by emerging health study data, the EPA issued an advisory to local water systems warning that prolonged exposure to the chemicals over 70 parts-per-trillion (ppt) may result in “adverse health effects.” The agency encouraged utilities to voluntarily monitor and filter to below that level, but does not enforce a standard.
President Joe Biden pledged during the 2020 campaign to accelerate the study and regulation of PFAS, but his EPA has yet to designate the class of substances as hazardous under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
There is growing momentum in Congress to pressure the agency over the issue. In a bipartisan vote last month, the House approved a bill that would force the EPA to establish mandatory national limits for PFAS in drinking water within two years, requiring more water systems to start filtering the chemicals out. The Senate’s pending bipartisan infrastructure bill would include billions to help communities get the job done.
“The thing that gives me the greatest concern is not every community or every water company in the U.S. is actively testing for PFAS,” said Kmiec. “So, there’s a lot of small to medium sized utilities that may have no idea if they even have a problem in their watershed.”
The chemicals have been detected on the shores of Michigan lakes, in the neighborhoods around old Naval Air Stations in Pennsylvania and even in the groundwater of a New Mexico dairy farm whose owner alleges in federal court documents that PFAS has poisoned the cows.
Water samples Evans collected and tested in March found elevated PFAS levels in the taps of some Virginia suburbs around the nation’s capital. A firefighting foam spill at a small regional airport is a suspected source of the contamination.
“It’s in the backyard of the people who are working on these issues,” Evans said.
Groundwater contamination, like that in Tucson, has often been linked to industrial sites, landfills, airports and military bases where the chemicals may have seeped into the ground years ago. Analysts with EWG estimated that more than 200 million Americans could be drinking some amount of PFAS in their tap water every day.
“We don’t want them in our bodies because we know that they can make some people sick,” said Dr. Jamie DeWitt, an East Carolina University toxicologist and pharmacologist leading cutting-edge research into how PFAS affect human bodies.
“Some of the effects that have been uncovered through studies of people who are exposed are different types of cancer. The ones that are most strongly linked are kidney and testicular cancer,” DeWitt said. “We know they can produce negative effects on the liver; affect levels of cholesterol in the body; affect your body’s immune system. They can also have effects on developing babies and on women while they are pregnant.”
The EPA declined ABC News’ request for an interview but said in a statement that addressing PFAS in drinking water is “a top priority” and that the agency is “developing a multi-year strategy to deliver critical public health protections.”
The agency said it is moving “as expeditiously as possible” while balancing the law, industry interests and the science. The EPA recently announced steps to collect more data on PFAS in drinking water systems and said they plan to move forward with regulations on two specific, older types of the chemicals linked to known health problems.
The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group representing PFAS manufacturers, said in a statement responding to this ABC News report that it’s “committed to the responsible production, use and management” of the substances and supports the EPA consideration of national drinking water standards for two of the more than 4,000 types of PFAS chemicals.
“Most health effects that have been attributed to PFAS related to legacy substances that have been voluntarily removed from the market,” the group said in a statement.
Many environmental and consumer advocates said the EPA’s delay in regulating the chemical class more broadly is highly troubling.
“I think that the EPA — we need to hold their feet to the fire because nothing is going to change, nothing will go forward until they set those limits,” said Yolanda Herrera, a longtime Tucson community advocate for safe drinking water. “It’s going to take all of us together to go to Congress, to go to the EPA to make major changes that need to be done.”
Remediation of PFAS in water systems can be time-consuming and costly. The lack of an EPA-mandated drinking water standard complicates the process, state and local officials told ABC News, because there is not a clear benchmark for how much needs to be cleaned up and what resources governments need to meet it.
“We have no way of removing PFAS from the body,” said Dr. Philippe Grandjean, a top environmental health expert and leading researcher on PFAS at the Harvard University School of Public Health. “We need to do everything we can to protect women … against these compounds so that they are not burdening the next generation.”
Estimates for eliminating the toxins in soil and water at sites nationwide exceed tens of billions of dollars.
“We have been cleaning and remediating PFAS with our own dime,” said Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, “but the residents of our community should not be left holding the bag of something that they did not create.”
Arizona state and local officials believe PFAS-laden firefighting foam deployed in training exercises and emergencies decades ago at Tucson’s International Airport and Air National Guard complex is only now reaching groundwater wells miles away.
“The firefighting foam — (the Air Force) has told us that they either, if it was used on the runway, they’d hose this stuff into the soil. If it was used in the hangars, they’d dilute it and dump it down the sewer system,” said Tucson Councilman Steve Kozachik about the facility, which is home to one of the largest F-16 training installations in the world.
The base is one of an estimated 687 military installations with known or suspected PFAS contamination, according to Pentagon data published by the Government Accountability Office in June.
A June 2021 report by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality found PFAS concentrations in groundwater samples around the Tucson airport at 10,000 ppt — far above the EPA’s 70 ppt advisory. Scientists believe a plume of PFAS in the soil has been slowly migrating underground north and west toward wells that feed into the city’s now-shuttered water treatment plant.
“The PFAS people see in groundwater is just a little fraction of the total PFAS at those contamination sites,” Guo said.
The Defense Department said it is investigating the scope of known or suspected contamination at or near hundreds of facilities but needs more time before it can launch a large-scale clean-up plan. Five years ago, the military began deploying what it calls a “new, environmentally responsible” firefighting foam, however it is not yet PFAS-free.
“Tucson is a bellwether. We’re the canary in the coal mine right now,” said Kozachik. “We’re saying to every other city in the country, this is an issue if you’ve got a military base in your community.”
The indefinite shutdown of the water treatment facility on Tucson’s south side because of PFAS has resurfaced old fears.
In 1983, the EPA listed Tucson as a Superfund site after the city’s tap water was poisoned by an industrial spill of the chemical solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE. The pollution, which went undetected for years, is linked to cancer cases and deaths across the city’s south side.
Hundreds of residents received financial settlements in major lawsuits, and state and local governments later funded construction of the water treatment facility. It has been cleaning up the water ever since — until PFAS arrived.
“How is this being allowed to happen?” said Tucson native Pattie Daggett, 47, who was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer in 2014 that her doctor linked to TCE exposure in the water.
“They haven’t even finished cleaning up the chemicals that were in the water before,” said Daggett. “We’ve got PFAS now. Like, what? I wish I could tell you how worried I am.”
