KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The University of Kansas Health System said Friday that a pediatric patient died of COVID-19 complications this week.
A health system spokeswoman confirmed the death, but was unable to provide further details on the patient’s age or the circumstances surrounding the death, citing privacy laws.
Pediatric patients at the University of Kansas Hospital range from newborn to adolescent.
While deaths and serious complications from the coronavirus remain rare in children, it is a problem of concern as schools continue to plan how to safely bring students back to the classroom in the fall.
On the Kansas City subway, several of the larger districts, including Blue Valley, Shawnee Mission, and Kansas City, Missouri, Public Schools, have said they will wait to start until after Labor Day. But how those plans will look in terms of virtual versus face-to-face learning still remains in the air.
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Health experts say that while young children, especially those under the age of 10, don’t seem to spread the virus as easily as adults, social distancing and masks will be key for districts to implement a safe learning environment in person. .
During a daily briefing on Friday morning, University of Kansas Health System officials stressed the importance of schools taking these precautions.
“You can try to get around these infection control rules, but they will hit it,” said Dr. Steven Stites, medical director of the health system. “… Wearing a mask, keeping your distance makes a difference. Can you interact safely? Yes you can. Will it seem the way you are used to interacting? Not now.”
In Kansas, Governor Laura Kelly has issued an executive order that will require masks in schools across the state, along with daily temperature controls.
On Thursday, however, Attorney General Derek Schmidt said he believes local counties and school districts will have the option to exempt themselves from the order, similar to the state’s previous mandate as the governor’s mask. When given the choice, most counties in the state decided not to adopt the mask mandate, a factor that the state’s top health official has directly attributed to a recent increase in cases.
Across the state line, Missouri Governor Mike Parson made national headlines for comments he made that children could “get over” the virus if they catch it while at school. Since then, he said that although his comments “did not articulate very well,” he wanted to convey the possibility of COVID-19 in schools and that reopening plans will look different for districts across the state, depending on the number of cases in the community.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently revised its guidelines for schools, reversing its previous guidance and emphasizing reopening in the fall. The new guide is in line with the Trump administration’s priority of reopening schools.
Cases of the virus have continued to rise steadily in both Kansas and Missouri. On Friday afternoon, the two states had reported 24,408 and 39,673 cases, respectively.
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