NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— Hospitalizations continue to rise day by day for kids at Children’s Hospital, while vaccinations among kids who are eligible are still very low.
WGNO’s Kenny Lopez talked to a parent who wants to encourage other parents to vaccinate their children.
Tina Scott’s a mother of two kids. A mother who is now raising her kids on her own. Her husband Chris died of COVID last year.
“I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what my family has gone through with COVID,” Scott said.
Tina and her two kids are vaccinated. Her husband wasn’t able to get vaccinated because the vaccines weren’t available before he died of COVID-19.
“It was hard enough watching my husband die of COVID, I wouldn’t even want to fathom having a child sick or worse from not getting vaccinated,” she said.
Tina’s shocked that the vaccination rate among kids is so low. In Louisiana, 75 percent of kids ages 5 to 17 are unvaccinated and 25 percent have gotten at least one shot.
“I think a lot of people have lost that message that vaccines are there to protect us,” Scott said.
Tina says we need to start trusting and listening to doctors like Dr. Mark Kline at Children’s Hospital New Orleans.
“We can nearly guarantee that a vaccinated child will not fall ill enough with COVID to require hospitalization,” Dr. Kline said.
Right now there are 28 kids at Children’s Hospital suffering from COVID and five in intensive care, which is the most hospitalizations since the pandemic began.
“It is as bad as it has ever been. So the time to have your kids vaccinated really is right now,” he said.
A decision Tina knew was right for her family, and she wants to encourage other families to do the same.
“The vaccines are so important to us because it allowed us to be with people again,” she said.