A pediatrician mom makes a desperate plea to those prolonging the pandemic.
As a pediatrician and a mom, I’ve spent the past 16 months witnessing COVID through the lens of the devastation it causes to children and families. I remember those first months during New York City’s first wave, kids confined in apartments, watching loved ones suffer and perish, as their families began to bear the incredible weight of the pandemic’s financial, social and emotional toll. I recall lying awake just months later as the mysterious, terrifying multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) hit our hospitals and took from us our only sense of security: that infection might physically spare our children.
And I’ve been watching ever since. I’ve seen our society prioritize the whims of adults over the health of children. Adults who rip their masks off before herd immunity or children’s own vaccinations could protect kids. Communities that reopen restaurants before schools. And more perplexing, maddening than anything else, refuse in large numbers to embrace a safe, effective vaccine that can end this pandemic for them.
The world of vaccine hesitancy and decision making is far from a monolith. I don’t pretend to know the full complexities of each individual’s reasoning for denying or postponing these immunizations. Nor do I invalidate them point blank. The medical establishment has centuries of abuse to reckon with. The anti-vaccine propaganda machine is ingenious in its tactics. Disinformation abounds and doubt is natural, understandable even.
But the fact remains that our collective inability to embrace these miraculous vaccines is causing indelible and immeasurable damage to our children. Don’t let the talking heads fool you: This pandemic is hurting kids. COVID infection can be severe in kids, and glib quotes about mortality rates dishonor the lives of the children we have lost. The known, emerging, and unknown long-term health effects of COVID frighten pediatricians even more than acute illness in many cases. And ongoing transmission, with mutations that keep us in an arms’ race with vaccination and pose increasing health risks to kids, hold perhaps the greatest danger of all.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recently issued recommendations that advocate for universal masking as a way to safely and sustainably keep all kids physically in school, a sentiment echoed by last week’s CDC guidelines. The result was an expected, if absurd, continuation of the war on masks. The call and response has become rote to us parents. We cry for help, for others to do their part and allow us to let our children return to some semblance of a pre-pandemic normal. We hear nonsensical refrains. We are told to take masks off our children and return them to the world they once knew by sheer force of will. We are asked to rip off a bandaid as if this will heal the wound beneath. We are told that masks are the sole cause of pandemic trauma, rather than the most salient and visible sign of its ongoing damage.
When I see so many adults focus on children’s masks and ignore everything else, I can understand the impulse. Their masks are a mark of our failures, a neon signpost pointing at our sheer inability to take the collective action needed to restore them to a world they deserve.
Here’s the thing, though: Pediatricians and parents want masks off kids, too. We are devastated that our children continue to bear the burden of this pandemic, and we’re shaken to our very core when we are falsely told that our desire to protect them is somehow to blame for their suffering. It is exhausting, and we need help.
Are you angry that kids are still wearing masks? Me too. I hope your concern is genuine, because you can help parents and pediatricians in our advocacy. There is a clear path to a mask-free, safe, social and sustainable reality for our children, and it is paved almost entirely by vaccination.
I know you have concerns, I know this feels new, I know there is healthy skepticism of our systems, and I know the misinformation that you face. But before you dismiss vaccination, before you postpone it until some undecided future date, before you let the pundits win, just give us one moment. Ask us your questions and let us address your concerns. Think about the children whose masks make you so uncomfortable and the damage this pandemic is causing them, with no clear end in sight. Decide if not needing, not wanting, or not caring about getting your COVID shot is reason enough to postpone a return to normal for them. Understand that the fear and uncertainty about this vaccine may be real, but overcoming them will forever change millions of children’s lives for the better.
Rebekah Diamond, M.D. is a hospital pediatrician in New York City and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University. She is the author of the upcoming book Parent Like a Pediatrician and also gives safe, realistic parenting guidance on Instagram @parentlikeapediatrician.
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A pediatrician mom makes a desperate plea to those prolonging the pandemic.
A pediatrician mom makes a desperate plea to those who have yet to get vaccinated to please do so, for our children.
