Viewpoints: Kids Can’t Be Forgotten In Covid Fight; Long-Haul Covid Helps Us Understand Other Illnesses

USA Today: In Our Push To End The Pandemic, Kids Cannot Be An Afterthought
Americans face a challenge of our own making on the path to herd immunity: our failure to properly consider the needs of children. While we can celebrate the fact that nearly 200 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the U.S., few of them, outside of clinical trials, have gone into the arms of children younger than 16. That’s why we need to recalibrate our expectations — and redouble our efforts — so that the tens of millions of children in this country are kept safe. (Richard E. Besser and Julie Morita, 4/19)

Los Angeles Times: How Long Haul COVID Could Offer Clues For Treating Other Puzzling Chronic Illnesses 
Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, doctors began seeing puzzling symptoms in patients that lasted well beyond the initial infection period. These COVID-19 long-haulers suffered from distressing or debilitating problems months after supposedly recovering from the disease .On a Facebook support page for long-haulers, one person who had developed extreme fatigue said: “It was like I was chained to my bed. It seemed impossible to even think about getting up.” Another with brain fog shared: “I was cleaning my gutters and forgot where I was and what I was doing on the roof.” (Leroy Hood, 4/18)

New England Journal of Medicine: SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine–Induced Immune Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia 
The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) stimulated the development of highly effective vaccines that were produced with unprecedented speed with the use of diverse technologies. No major safety warnings, other than rare cases of anaphylaxis, were reported in the initial trials, which involved tens of thousands of adults, and the risk of serious adverse effects has remained remarkably low after vaccination of more than 400 million people worldwide to date.1 It is not surprising, however, that new reports of adverse events have emerged as many additional people are vaccinated and follow-up is extended. For example, cases of immune thrombocytopenia and bleeding without thrombosis that were induced or revealed after exposure to the messenger RNA (mRNA)–based vaccines produced by Moderna (mRNA-1273) and Pfizer–BioNTech (BNT162b2) have been reported.2 (Douglas B. Cines, M.D. and James B. Bussel, M.D., 4/16)

CNN: There Will Be No Graceful Exit From The Covid-19 Pandemic
The vaccine rollout has given many Americans hope that the end of the pandemic is in sight and that we can finally pull the curtain down on our collective trauma. But even with the expanded distribution of the Covid-19 vaccines, it is increasingly apparent there will be no graceful exit from the pandemic, which has caused societal strife, high unemployment and growing inequalities, not to mention the deaths of more than 560,000 people in the United States. We also face the dire possibility that Covid-19 will become an endemic disease, like the cold or flu. (Mathew Burrows and Barry Pavel, 4/16)

Stat: U.S. Civil War Public Health Lessons Could Have Blunted Covid-19 
As the U.S. approaches 600,000 deaths from Covid-19, it is hard to fathom that this calamity pales in comparison to America’s worst outbreak of epidemic diseases during and just after the Civil War. From smallpox and measles to dysentery and typhoid, the Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, triggered an explosion of deadly epidemics on a scale never seen in the U.S., before or since. A million sick soldiers, newly emancipated ex-slaves, families caught in the crossfire, and hungry refugees died during the war, about 3% of the U.S. population. Two-thirds of these deaths were from disease. For comparison, it would take nearly 10 million Americans deaths from Covid-19 to reach the Civil War’s death toll. (Jonathan S. Jones, 4/18)

Newsweek: I Got The Johnson & Johnson Shot. Here's What I Need To Hear 
I was one of the last people in the U.S. to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, breezing into Walgreens for my jab the day before federal health agencies called for a pause. I never thought twice about getting a coronavirus vaccine, but now I'm monitoring my 45-year-old female body for blood clots and feeling solidarity with vaccine hesitators. If public health officials want to build trust in people like me, they might start with these two words: I'm sorry. The words "I'm sorry" show contrition, humility and concern for individuals—attributes that public health officials would do well to demonstrate to a public primed to believe a lot of people in government are "drunk with power." (Kelly J. Kelly, 4/16)