Pediatricians are generally usually-and family physicians are usually very good about convincing people that vaccinating kids is important. Parents are not feeling that this is something that needs to happen. But the fact that only about 5% of parents have vaccinated their 6-month and 5-year-olds and the fact that something like only 30% of 6- to 11-year-olds are completely vaccinated really shows that the message is not getting across. Unger: That seems to be a theme of this entire pandemic.ĭr. Carroll: Well, I do worry that our messaging in the way that we're talking about this is not working and the fact that something that. With the hope of this kind of maybe a little bit of return to normalcy, what is the disconnect? And how do physicians approach these conversations with parents as we head back into the fall?ĭr. Unfortunately, what we've seen is that the uptake on these vaccines is way, way, way lower than we hoped it was for all those age groups, including the 5- to 11-year-olds. And as you mentioned, we've had a rollout of vaccines for many age groups even as young as six months old, which is a game changer, obviously, for a lot of families. Deaths, while still higher than we'd like, are much lower than they used to be. Many, many, many more people are vaccinated. People are hospitalized but sometimes also with COVID as opposed to because of COVID. But I'd also say that things are unquestionably safer than they were a couple of years ago. Nobody hoped that we'd still be doing this for a third time. Are they generally optimistic or just fatigued, both, at this point?ĭr. Unger: Well, I don't know that I'd want to be in the shoes of the parents and educators, administrators, and students right now that have been dealing with this for some time. And, unfortunately, we're still needing to deal with the ongoing pandemic and what it might mean as everybody comes back together for school. It's hard to believe this is the third time we've spoken about back to school. Unger: And we were talking just before this.
I'm Todd Unger, AMA's chief experience officer in Chicago. Aaron Carroll, a distinguished professor of pediatrics and chief health officer at Indiana University in Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm joined today for the third annual back-to-school episode with Dr. Today's topic, can you believe it? Back to school and what that's going to look like in the fall.
#Please dont worry bout me im fine update
This is the American Medical Association's COVID-19 Update video and podcast.