Kristin Van Hook, pediatric pulmonologist at Ochsner Hospital for Children, said the number of kids in the hospital with COVID is much higher than with any other variant.
She also said that those children in the hospital are not vaccinated.
Van Hook understands reservations that parents may have when it comes to vaccinating their children but wants to assure them that them that the vaccine is completely safe.
She said, while this is a new vaccine, the way it was developed is not new technology; it is something that has been around for a while.
"They have been studied in hundreds of thousands of adults and thousands of children," Van Hook said. "The vaccine for children did take longer to roll out because they did enroll larger numbers of children to make sure they had adequate power for the studies to ensure safety. No one wants to do anything that's going to harm a child, the first rule in medicine is to do no harm."
Van Hook added, following mitigation measures that we have been following for the past two years is key to staying healthy.
"Wash your hands, if you're sick don't leave your house, and if you're around someone who is sick take a step back and try and minimize your exposure as much as possible," Van Hook said.
Van Hook said that masks are shown to be highly effective. She said while any masks will work, the KN-95 have shown to filter out particles and protect against infection.