J. J. Boatman, a nine-year-old boy who had just celebrated his birthday in Vernon (about 300 kilometers north of Dallas) died of complications from covid-19, a few hours after presenting the first symptoms.
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“He was a child full of energy,” explained his aunt Annette Cliver to local chain KFDX. But suddenly he fell ill. “One moment he was fine and the next he woke up and didn’t feel well anymore.”
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JJ’s health fell apart in a matter of hours. By Sunday night, he was fine, his father explained to the WFAA chain. The next morning, Monday, he began to have serious trouble breathing.
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The family rushed him to the nearest hospital that same Monday and from there he was taken by plane Cook Children’s Medical Center, in the greater Dallas area.
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The boy’s parents drove by car while their son was airlifted. “That trip was a nightmare. The longest of my life, ”explained his father Jason. Upon arrival, the doctors explained that JJ’s lungs were full of fluid and his brain had swollen from lack of oxygen. He died that same Tuesday.
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Almost 2.7 million children in the United States have been diagnosed with covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, last March, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). In the last two weeks, there have been 377,000 new cases among children, an increase of 16%.
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Even so, children continue to be the group least likely to die from the pandemic, according to data from the AAP. Minors represent 0.19% of deaths so far.
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But at Cook Children’s Hospital, where Boatman died, two other children have passed away in recent days. Before them, the medical center had only recorded a single infant death since the pandemic began.
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Experts have stressed that, although children have been shown to be more resistant to COVID-19, that does not mean that they are immune. A doctor commented that the increase in cases among children may be due to the general increase in patients, which in the United States has registered a new rise and placed the country above 443,000 deaths, according to official data.
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“We must take into account the increase in infections,” said the doctor Curtis galkefrom the University of North Texas Center for Medical Sciences. “We have just come out of a holiday season where many people had meetings. So an increase in infections in people of all ages was to be expected ”.
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As for whether the new variants of the coronavirus have been discovered, doctors have argued that there is still no substantial evidence to accurately affirm the mortality that this means.
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“The behavior of the virus has not changed,” Galke said. “Children are infected just like adults are. Only that most of the children do not present the same symptoms and they recover much more quickly ”.
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It is not yet clear which variant was the one that killed JJ Boatman, who before contracting the disease suffered from asthma but who had not presented another condition before dying from covid-19. Her aunt summed up: “You never think it’s going to happen to you or someone you know. But it happens ”.
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