A pediatrician out of Central New York has stated masks are vital to ensure students make a safe return to school.
Dr. Robert Dracker has already seen an early increase in the flu on top of COVID cases where he works at Summerwood Pediatrics in Liverpool.
The lowest flu infections has been were when masks were strictly mandated.
Children aren’t only at risk of contracting COVID, but some kids are fighting the flu or RSV as well as COVID at the same time.
He stated that children don’t seem to mind masks, that the parents themselves seem to have the bigger issue.
Dracker said that severe illness with children and COVID is rare and he himself has never sent one of his pediatric patients to the ICU.
Dracker explained that the fear isn’t just children getting sick, but them spreading it, infecting others, and keeping the virus going which allows it to mutate and change.
He and other pediatricians believe these illnesses will spread once school starts regardless of masks, but masks will help diminish it.
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