(FORT WORTH, Texas) — A Texas mom is urging parents to send their kids to school wearing masks after she says her 11-year-old son was diagnosed with multisystem inflammatory syndrome a month after testing positive for COVID-19.

Angie Abbott said she and her son Cason went to see a doctor on Nov. 8, 2020 because he wasn’t feeling well; he’d been dealing with symptoms like a sore throat. Carson then tested positive for COVID-19, but they were sent home because his condition didn’t require hospitalization. Abbot said she monitored him from home, where he just “wanted to lay around and watch movies.”

Having just lost her fiancé, who she says died from a stroke, Abbot said she became “worried” that his “lethargy” was from depression and called a local pediatrician, who advised her to take him to a hospital.

“He always wanted to sleep and he didn’t feel good,” Abbott, 53, told “Good Morning America.”

In December 2020, Abbott said she twice brought her son to a local hospital in Abilene, but the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. When Cason’s symptoms worsened, she said she took him to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth.

“Immediately, they knew he had MIS-C,” she said. “His inflammation markers were extremely high with the swelling. He was swollen on the outside of his face, his hands and his feet. He had a rash pretty much all over him. His eyes were really bloodshot and red, and there were dark circles under his eyes.”

“I was scared to death,” Abbott continued. “I didn’t even know what MIS-C was.”

MIS-C is a condition where different body parts, such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes and gastrointestinal organs can become inflamed. While it’s unclear what causes MIS-C, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that many children who have MIS-C had COVID-19. The CDC has recorded 4,404 cases of MIS-C since May 2020.

“MIS-C has a median age of 9 years old,” said Dr. Priscilla Hanudel, an emergency medicine physician in Los Angeles and member of the ABC News Medical Unit. “Masking is crucial to preventing children from developing this severe illness, particularly because ages 11 and under aren’t yet vaccine-eligible.”

The morning after he was admitted, Abbott said Cason wouldn’t wake up and nurses couldn’t get a blood pressure reading on him. They rushed him to the intensive care unit, where he was in “critical condition,” she said.

“The doctor told me that if I would’ve waited until the next morning to drive him to the hospital, he probably wouldn’t have made it,” Abbott said.

Although Cason was released from the ICU and sent home a month later in January, he still has to return to Cook Children’s Medical Center for regular tests and lab work, Abbott said.

“His inflammation markers and several of his labs are way off,” she said. “He now has no immunity because of the MIS-C treatment.”

Treatments for MIS-C work to reduce inflammation in the body and include antibiotics, steroid therapy and intravenous immunoglobulin, which is a blood product made of antibodies, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Cason is now immunocompromised, Abbott said, and dealing with symptoms of MIS-C like fatigue and inflammation. She’s worried he might get reinfected when he returns to school at Wylie West Junior High, where he’ll be a sixth-grader starting Aug. 18.

“We just got released last week from his infectious disease doctor to go back to school wearing a mask,” Abbott said. “So here’s my thing that I’m worried about as a mom: what about these other kids that he’s going to be around? Most of them won’t be wearing masks and will not be vaccinated because they’re under 12.”

After Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order banning government entities, including school districts, from requiring people to use masks, Cason’s school is one of many that will not be mandating mask use during the upcoming school year.

Abbott said that because of her son’s weakened immune system, Cason won’t be eligible for the vaccine when he turns 12 on Sept. 3. The CDC recommends people with MIS-C delay vaccinations for 90 days from the date of diagnosis.

“It’s the only thing that’s been on my mind,” Abbott said. “It’s not just a daily thing. It’s every moment of every day I’m worried about him. … I feel like we’re going into a war zone without any protection of our own.”

Cason’s school also won’t be offering any form of remote learning, Abbott said. As a working single mother, with no childcare options, she’s unable to pull Cason out of school and homeschool him.

“My child is still sick … it’s very scary to me if my child was to get COVID again,” Abbott said. “I don’t even want to think about what that might look like for us.”

Wylie West Junior High did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ‘GMA’ for comment about Cason’s remote learning.

Abbott is now urging parents to take the virus more seriously and to consider how valuable masks and the vaccine are in containing the spread.

“Be thankful that your world has not turned upside-down like mine has,” Abbott said. “COVID and MIS-C are very real in my home, and [it’s] very devastating the effects that it’s had on my home, so please don’t sit there and say it’s no big deal.”

She added, “If somebody was able to walk in my shoes and go through what I went through with my child, I think there’d be no doubt in their minds that they wanted the vaccine — that they never wanted to be that sick or give that to someone else.”

As for Cason, Abbott calls him a “trooper.”

“He’s a sweetheart,” she said. “He worries more about me getting sad for any time that we get a bad diagnosis or something to be concerned about. He’s never worried about himself ever. He’s never complained about this one time — he feels such a need to be protective of me.”

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(NEW YORK) — As the delta variant continues to ravage communities across the country, Hispanic populations in many states have been left behind in the race to get the country vaccinated, according to Salud America, a national Latino-focused research organization.

Health experts say misinformation, fear and a lack of access to vaccination sites have contributed to the lower rates of vaccination — despite the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the Latino community.

According to Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization focusing on national health issues, Black and Hispanic people are less likely than their white counterparts to have received a vaccine, leaving the unvaccinated members of the group at an elevated risk of contracting the virus.

“It’s pretty much life or death if they are choosing not to vaccinate themselves because of myths,” said Arturo Vargas Bustamante, a professor of Health Policy and Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Health experts are pleading with people to learn more about the science, unlearn the myths and overcome the fears concerning the vaccine.

Activists, like Frankie Miranda, of the non-profit Latino advocacy group the Hispanic Federation, are also calling on local officials to provide culturally competent information to help stop the spread of coronavirus among Latinos, who may have a mistrust of the U.S. government.

Latinos and the virus

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 70% of adults in the U.S. have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

State-by-state percentages of Latino vaccination rates show the disparities in vaccination — as of Aug. 2, only about 26.9% of Latinos in Alabama have received at least one dose, according to Salud America, which analyzes state and CDC data. In Tennessee, 31.3% of Latinos have had at least one dose. In Texas, it’s 32% of Latinos.

However, more than 90% of Latinos in Vermont and more than 60% of Latinos in Virginia have received at least one dose, Salud America reports.

And in the last two weeks, people of color are being vaccinated more than white people, according to the CDC — which could be attributed to the recent rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths among unvaccinated populations.

Latinos make up 28.5% of overall confirmed cases in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic, the CDC reports.

Bustamante recommended that trusted Latino leaders and figures partner with local governments and health agencies to get the word out about vaccines, their efficiency and the importance of community health to stop the spread.

Miranda blamed the lack of Spanish-language resources and outreach to communities and said that the lack of access and awareness can cause confusion for many.

“It is okay to feel anxious, to feel nervous about it,” said Miranda. “By asking questions or going to a community-based organization in their communities, to ask these questions, many of these worries will go away and they will understand that this is the best way to protect themselves and their families.”

Vaccination misconceptions, myths and fears

“Chisme mata,” said Fernandez, which means “gossip kills” in Spanish. He and other health experts warned against believing posts, articles and memes from non-reputable sources.

One common fear about the vaccine that some people have heard is that there may be unknown long-term effects. But experts, like American Public Health Association President Jose Ramon Fernandez, said that there’s no need to fear long-term effects because they have rarely, if ever, occurred with past vaccines.

The Food and Drug Administration puts each vaccine candidate through a rigorous safety and efficacy process before granting approval. And safety monitoring continues after approval as well.

All three current COVID-19 vaccines granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) by the FDA have undergone three phases of testing, including large trials that lasted several months. The CDC says currently authorized vaccines are safe and effective and Pfizer expects to apply for full approval next month.

“We have over [200] years of experience with vaccines, and there’s no record at all of having long-term effects of a vaccine,” said Fernandez.

Skepticism on the speed of vaccine production, and how quickly it was made available, is also easily explained, according to the CDC.

Other diseases caused by coronaviruses in the past are closely related to the COVID-19 virus. Because researchers had been developing vaccines for those diseases when the novel coronavirus was discovered, the basis for this vaccine was already in the works, according to the CDC.

Combined with billions of dollars funding expedited research and millions of volunteers working on this effort — the vaccine was made faster than normal.

“I know that it’s difficult to feel confident about science, especially right now during the pandemic where the advice given by scientists changes so regularly,” said Bustamante.

“You need to understand that science evolves,” he said. “Knowledge is not one static product. We, as scientists, contribute to science and see how trends evolve over time, and that many times makes us change our guidelines.”

Among the many false narratives about vaccines is they can cause problems with fertility.

“It has been completely debunked,” Fernandez said. “It’s an absolute lie. There’s no evidence anywhere around the world where this has been proven to be true.”

Given substantial data supporting the safety of vaccines, the CDC now strongly recommends that people who are pregnant and considering becoming pregnant to get vaccinated.

Another fear about the vaccine is that there are other cures to COVID-19, or that a healthy lifestyle is sufficient in protecting people from the illness. That is false, said Dr. Ramon Tallaj from SOMOS Community Care, a network of health providers in New York City.

He said that doctors, scientists, and public health experts believe that the vaccine, alongside other COVID-19 safety precautions like masking and social distancing, is the best protection against the virus and drastically protects the infected from severe illness.

“Somebody told me that they prefer the natural immunity … but natural immunity means that 600,000 people die in the United States,” said Tallaj about the growing COVID-19 death toll in the United States. “The only reason why humans live so long now … is because of vaccines and antibiotics.”

Some people are also in fear of getting symptoms after receiving the vaccine and may have to take off work or be disciplined by their bosses, Fernandez and Tallaj said.

But side effects like headache and fevers are temporary, and they don’t happen to everyone. Meanwhile, many employers will give workers a paid day off to rest after getting the shots, so public health officials recommend asking employers what options exist to take time off.

“It’s in their interest to make sure that you’re healthy,” said Fernandez. “Do it for your mother. Do it for your children. Do it for your friends. Do it for your co-workers. Do it for your community.”

And for undocumented immigrants or uninsured Latinos, there is no need to fear — people getting the vaccine will not be asked about their legal status and insurance isn’t needed. The vaccine is completely free and no one will be billed for it.

“As a Latino man, I’m deeply concerned about the health of our community, and I want to do anything I can to make sure that we have access to accurate information to help people make a decision that they will be happy they made down the line,” Fernandez said.

To find more information, and to find Spanish-language guidance on the vaccine, experts recommend heading to the CDC website for more information, or to the CDC’s vaccine finder to look for vaccination sites nearby.

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(NEW YORK) — Scientists are learning more about how widespread wildfires affect human health — and if there is a link between severe COVID-19 cases and regions that experience fires on a regular basis.

In 2020, a record-breaking fire season in the U.S. saw more than 10.2 million acres scorched in wildfires, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Both California and Oregon had historic wildfire seasons, and several small towns were destroyed in California, Oregon and Washington, according to NOAA. The dense smoke from the wildfires produced hazardous air quality for millions of people in the U.S. for weeks, the agency said.

Increases in the fine particulate matter from the wildfire smoke, the pollutant in smoke that poses the greatestrisk to health, were associated with spikes in severe COVID-19 cases and deaths in many counties in three West Coast states in 2020, according to a study published Friday in Sciences Advances.

Researchers studied COVID cases in 92 counties California, Oregon and Washington — all states that host annual wildfires during the dry season — ranging from mid-March to mid-December, Francesca Dominici, professor of biostatistics at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public health and author of the study, told ABC News.

They found that wildfires had the largest potential effect on COVID-19 cases in the counties of Butte, California, and Whitman, Washington, where 17.3% and 18.2% of total cases, respectively, were attributable to high particulate matter levels on wildfire days, according to the study.

Wildfires had the greatest potential influence on COVID-19 deaths in Butte and Calaveras counties in California, scientists said. The COVID cases analyzed were based on reported tests, which covers more than 95% of the population in the three states, according to the study.

The effects on COVID cases from the wildfire smoke were observed up to four weeks after the exposure to the particulate matter, the researchers said.

“This is really attributable to the wildfire events, which is concerning us,” Dominici said, adding that they “keep coming” as a result of climate change.

While recent studies had reported that short-term exposure to particulate matter associated with increased risk of COVID-19 cases and deaths, the degree of how much the 2020 wildfire season exacerbated the severity of the pandemic had not been clear, the researchers said.

Dominici said she was “surprised” about the findings, adding that the research suggests an association between wildfire emissions and asymptomatic cases becoming symptomatic and an association between fine particulate matter accelerating spread of the airborne virus.

The scientists believe the research will likely apply to the 2021 fire season, which is already on track to break more records due to an early start caused by a megadrought and climate change.

“Especially for the unvaccinated,” Dominici said. “I think the vaccinated people will be more protected this year for having less severe cases.”

Dominici continued, “If I were to conduct the the same study among the unvaccinated, I think the results would probably be the same, if not even worse, as we have been learning that the delta variant is even more contagious.”

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