The Department of Health reports there have been 22 COVID-19 outbreaks linked to daycare facilities across the state since the pandemic started. Assistant State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter says those outbreaks account for 75 cases.
“That includes both children in daycare and staff. I think its a large number, but probably small when you consider the number of kids in daycare,” said Kanter.
Kanter says the new cases are concerning as it relates to the new branches of the virus each case may cause, but says how well daycare aged children transmit the virus to adults is unclear.
“We believe that they certainly act as vectors but the efficiency of which they do, we don’t know yet. There is some data to suggest that young kids might not transmit it as well to adults, but still not enough to be conclusive,” said Kanter.
While children appear to be more resilient than adults when it comes to avoiding poor health outcomes from the virus, kids in Louisiana have died from complications of COVID-19. Kanter says Louisiana is seeing an increasing number of cases of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, or MIS-C, associated with COVID-19 among young people. Another death linked to MIS-C was reported Monday.
“A total of four individuals in Louisiana below the age of 21 have died from Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children. Most of those four were older than daycare age,” said Kanter.
As of August 10, the number of confirmed MIS-C cases in Louisiana has risen to 44. To date, infants as young as 1 month and teens up to 19 years of age have received MIS-C diagnoses in Louisiana.
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