Baby and 4-year-olds in intensive care because of Covid-19 in Austria
In Austria, not only are the hospitals facing collapse because of the many adults seriously ill with Covid-19, several cases of children with corona infection continue to be very, very rare.
The standard reports on a 15-month-old child in Upper Austria who had to be treated in the intensive care unit because of Covid-19.
Christian Dopler, head of anesthesia at the Salzkammergut Clinic in Vöcklabruck, explains that the toddler has “severe lung failure” due to a combination of corona and the RS virus.
The RS virus – respiratory syncytial virus – is common in infants and young children and can cause acute, acute lower respiratory infections.
In Salzburg, a four-year-old girl is also heavily connected to PIMS. PIMS means “Pediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome”, it is a post-viral inflammatory syndrome in which the immune system is overreacted.
The first symptoms of PIMS are usually fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea.
A five-year-old boy also had to be treated in the children’s intensive care unit in Salzburg – as reported by ORF.
The more people in total become infected with the coronavirus, the higher the risk that children will become seriously ill with Covid-19. That was the case in the first wave of the coronavirus.
The Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) now puts the 7-day incidence at 925.0 (as of November 16).
Salzburg is the worst affected with an incidence of 1,595.1, and Upper Austria with 1,455.9. The 7-day incidence is lowest in Vienna with 499.2 and Burgenland with 621.3.
The federal state of Vienna is the only region in Europe where children aged 5 and over are now vaccinated against Covid-19. Registrations were booked out within hours on Monday.
The number of infections among children and adolescents has risen sharply in Austria. According to the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety AGES, the 7-day incidence among 5 to 14-year-olds is the highest among all age groups at just under 2,300.
The head of anesthesia in Vöcklabruck says: “It is already clear to me that toddlers cannot be vaccinated yet. But if we have a vaccination rate of 90 percent, we can protect them. The risk that unvaccinated toddlers get seriously ill with corona is then much lower. “