Pandemic against the sick children: why the planned hospitalizations in Moscow were stopped

Irina Mishina

It has been impossible to get any information through the Unified Information Service of the City of Moscow and through the unified medical information service "122" for the second day: operators report that the information service is not working, work is underway to restore it. The gentle voice of "artificial intelligence" reports in detail only about vaccination: where, when and how.

We turned to the Children's Clinical Hospital named after. Bashlyaeva, the largest in Moscow, where we were confirmed that from today planned hospitalization has been stopped, the hospital will only accept patients with coronavirus infection. The Moscow Department of Health calls the current increase in the incidence "unprecedented".

"Unprecedented incidence" now - how much? Half a class, a third of a class, or all of them? The second point: again the cancellation of planned hospitalization. In Moscow. That is, the health care system of the capital does not pull an infectious outbreak of unknown (most likely, quite normal in the "old times") intensity. And completely cancels all planned hospitalizations of children, as it is not able to cope with two tasks at the same time. What can we say about the provinces - things are obviously completely broken there. And these men threaten the whole world with war? Is the banal seasonal SARS an unbearable problem for them?”, - notes network analyst Anatoly Nesmiyan.

We tried to figure out what "unprecedented incidence" means. Here is how demographer Alexey Raksha commented:

“Unprecedented means that this has never happened before. Omicron primarily affects children, and this became clear back in November. Already in the fall of 2020, it became clear that children (schoolchildren, students, kindergarteners), gathered together in large groups in enclosed spaces, become powerful carriers of the virus. Now the number of hospitalizations among children has increased 10 times. Children make up one third of all cases. Of course, under these conditions, if hospitalization can be postponed, it must be postponed in order to protect against infection”.

Moscow is no exception in this regard. The most resilient healthcare systems in Europe and the US are also failing to cope with the current wave of coronavirus.

“The situation is the same in major cities in Europe and the United States. Even German health care, known for its pluses, failed. This is definitely bad news. But there is good news: according to the experience of other countries, the increase in the incidence from the beginning to the moment of decline is 20-25 days. That is, in a week we should come to the moment of recession. But there is a lesson in what happened for our healthcare system for the future. It is necessary to eliminate the shortage of medical personnel both in primary care and in hospitals, and this must be solved at the state level”, - says Guzel Ulumbekova, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Rector of the Higher School of Organization and Management of Health Care.

Experts predict, however, that in Russia the surge in the incidence will be more protracted due to the low level of vaccination.

“In China, children are vaccinated from the age of 2. In the United States, children between the ages of 12 and 17 are being vaccinated. Discussed vaccination of children from 5 to 12 years. No serious adverse reactions were found. When vaccinated with Pfizer and Moderna in the age category from 14 to 30 years, there are very rare adverse reactions in the form of myocarditis”, - said Guzel Ulumbekova, rector of the Higher School of Health Organization and Management. It is worth noting in this regard that in Russia, unlike the United States and Western Europe, the results of vaccine trials on children and adolescents have not yet been made public.

But to associate all the problems only with healthcare, according to demographer Alexey Raksha, it would not be correct.

“Lockdown is not being introduced, schools are not going remote, what system will cope with the epidemic? The problem is not so much in the healthcare system, but in the political elite and in society, which does not comply with anti-epidemic measures. But I think that in this wave we will not reach the number of deaths that we had in October-November”, - Alexey Raksha believes.

It's worth reminding that at the end of October in Russia, an average of 4,100 people died excessively per day, and now 1,100-1,200. In total, since the beginning of the pandemic, excess mortality has been about 1,040,000 people.