Healthy, Wealthy & Wise
Dr. Craig Barkan
Courtesy of Center City Pediatrics
though they make up only
a small fragment of Offi t’s
patients, convincing them
of the benefi ts of vaccines is
challenging. “When people make a
decision, they generally stick
by that decision, no matter how
much evidence there is that
they’ve made the wrong one,”
Offi t said.

However, vaccine attitudes
likely aren’t the driving
force behind routine vaccine
under-uptake among Offi t’s
and Barkan’s patients. In the
early days of the pandemic,
parents were especially wary of
taking their kids to the doctor,
and children potentially
missed important opportu-
nities to receive their routine
shots. “People have avoided going
to the doctor out of fear of
being in a place where they
might get infected or get sick,”
Barkan said.

As more people have
received COVID vaccinations,
numbers of visits to the doctor
have increased and returned
to pre-pandemic numbers
at Center City Pediatrics,
Barkan said.

If anything, parents of his
patients have become even
more willing to vaccinate their
kids: “For the most part, there
has been a strong eagerness for
the vaccine.”
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Th ough hesitant parents
remain few and far between,
professionals have warned
against the harm lack of vacci-
nation can cause. According
to Offi t, 75-100 children die
each year from chickenpox, a
vaccine-preventable disease.

Though COVID hospi-
talization rates for children
remain low, there remains a
risk that is preventable with
vaccines. “What people don’t realize
is that still you have thousands
of children between fi ve and
11 years of age who’ve been
hospitalized; you have about
100 children of that age group
who have died of this virus,”
Offi t said.

Increased hospitalizations
have the potential to overwhelm
the system, forcing patients
to delay elective surgeries,
according to Garrow. Th ough
elective surgeries are oft en
thought to be mostly cosmetic,
they also include surgeries for
cancer patients, which may be
put on hold indefi nitely.

“Th ere are people out there
right now who do need surgery,
lifesaving surgery, but can’t get
it because hospitals have been
so overwhelmed by people
who haven’t been vaccinated,”
Garrow said. ●
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JANUARY 27, 2022
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