Doctors urging parents to get kids vaccinated before heading back to school

NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) — Doctors are urging parents to get their kids the COVID-19 vaccine as they head back to school.

"Over the last four or five weeks or so we've seen a steady increase in the number of cases," said Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, the chief of infectious diseases at Children's Health and professor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Dr. Kahn said now is the time to get your kids vaccinated if they're not already.

"So I think with kids going back to school we have to consider what's going on right now," Dr. Kahn said. "One of the issues that is quite remarkable is that the percent positive tests, a metric of how much virus there is out there, is quite high."

The latest projections from UT Southwestern show cases and hospitalizations are going up, but not as severely as we've seen in the past. And while Dr. Kahn says it is rare for children to get severe cases of COVID-19, it can happen and there's no way to know how your child will be affected.

"We know that vaccinated individuals are less likely to spread the virus," he said. "So by immunizing your child you are actually reducing the risk that your child's going to bring COVID back to the home and potentially infect individuals in your household."

When it comes to concerns over the vaccine and myocarditis, he said perspective is important. He said it affects someone, on average, about one in 100,000 doses.

"The risk of myocarditis is greater if you get COVID than if you get the vaccine," he said.

Dr. Kahn also said it's important that if your child is sick, even with just mild symptoms, to keep them home. If it is COVID-19, what may be a mild illness for your child may not be mild for someone else's child.