We are staying home to keep ourselves, our neighbors, and our hardworking doctors and nurses safe. So it’s difficult to think of taking your kids to the one place that we have been told to avoid at all costs—the doctor’s office.
But maintaining routine health care is still important during this time, especially regarding immunizations and your child’s vaccine schedule. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have long mandated a recommended immunization schedule. According to the World Health Organization, vaccines are “widely recognized as one of the world’s most successful and cost-effective interventions” when it comes to diseases. In fact, the WHO recognizes the importance of immunizations every year by celebrating the last week in April as World Immunization Week as a way to promote the use of vaccines and to acknowledge that vaccines save millions of lives every year.
Dr. Katherine S.K. Edwards of Annapolis Pediatrics stresses the importance of vaccines. “If nothing else, this pandemic has brought into sharp focus the value of ongoing preventive medicine, something that has been mission central for pediatricians forever. Of all public health interventions that have been introduced over the past century, vaccination has made the most impact in saving lives. Sadly, pandemics in the past have often affected children MORE than other age groups, and the value of vaccinations cannot be overstated.”
Keeping you and your child safe from exposure of COVID-19 while maintaining routine health care can be done safely and effectively with the new measures that many medical offices have enacted during this pandemic. Many medical health practices are offering TeleMedicine visits, and for things like immunizations, offices like Annapolis Pediatrics will ensure that proper social distancing from other patients is observed as well as making your time in the office over as quickly as possible. In addition to immunizations, it is also important to maintain other routine health care such as orthodontic treatment, physical therapy, and mental health, to name a few.
When you’ve decided it’s time to take the kids in for regular appointments, immunizations or other worries, call your pediatrician first and ask whether a virtual visit is a possibility. If it’s not, ask what procedures the office has in place to keep everyone safe. From there, just remember to wear a mask and wash your hands often.
Don’t let the fear of the virus keep you from taking care of an illness or injury, either. For instance, AFC Urgent Care Edgewater is offering Virtual Visits and can remotely help you with your urgent care and consultation needs. Other practices like Annapolis Pediatrics and AFC Urgent Care Edgewater that have reached out to Chesapeake Family Life offering information on their current services like TeleMedicine and Virtual Visits are Johns Hopkins Physical Therapy, Baltimore Annapolis Center for Integrative Healing, and Philbin & Reinheimer Orthodontics. To find more information on these practices and other recommended health care practitioners, visit our Favorite Docs Directory. Also make sure to check out this article about What To Expect From a Virtual Visit.
For more information on WHO’s World Immunization Week, check out this link.
Other resources regarding immunizations and the recommended schedule can be found here.
Annapolis Pediatrics has put together a video on immunization stats – check it out here.
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