We are your kids’ last line of defense

Pediatricians plea for adults to protect children against COVID-19

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Editorials

September 7, 2021 - 9:15 AM

Dr. Sarrie Katz, a pediatrician, is one of a group of about 80 physicians and administrators who gathered in Palm Beach Gardens on August 23, 2021 to speak in support of masks and vaccines and address questions about COVID-19 and our community. TNS photo

There are eight of us, all women, all physicians who take care of the sickest children in the nation in Pediatric Intensive Care Units (PICUs) in the Midwest, the East Coast, the West Coast and the South. Some of us work in community hospitals, and some of us work at nationally rated hospitals, the kind everyone knows.

We have an intense bond that has been formed over the last year and a half, even though most of us have never met in person. We initially connected on Twitter and have supported each other virtually as the pandemic has kept us separated yet living a shared experience. We discussed mask mandates and how our local communities are responding to the pandemic. We rejoiced when the COVID-19 vaccine was approved, and we discussed how and when we could get it for ourselves, our colleagues and our patients.

We celebrate each other’s victories and mourn when things do not go the way we had hoped.

Over the last year and a half, we noticed something: Our group is an unintentional microcosm of pediatric providers throughout much of the nation. When we talked about vaccines, we saw that they were not distributed equitably, not here, and certainly not worldwide. Some of our units were eerily quiet during the winter, because our communities supported vaccines, mask mandates and social distancing, and some saw numbers rise and hopes plummet, because some of us work in areas where many people denied the dangers of COVID-19.

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