Summer Fun Awaits

in a plastic bag, then store it in the freezer. If there is a question about the tick bite later, this could be useful.

Wood ticks, known scientifically as Dermacentor variabilis, are also very common in these parts. These are significantly larger than deer ticks, so are likely better noticed by us. These ticks will not spread Lyme disease, but they can harbor the causative agents of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (and other similar rickettsioses), tularemia, anaplasmosis, and ehrlichosis. Wood ticks can also induce a condition known as tick paralysis, where the attached tick produces a neurotoxin that can induce a rapidly progressive flaccid quadraparesis (limp muscles that lack firmness). This terrifying condition can be cured by simply detaching the hungry arachnid.

Preventing tick bites can involve a few strategies. Keeping the grass cut short around the house can decrease the amount of mice in your yard. Mice are favored hosts of the deer tick. Some animals are proficient at eating ticks, among them chipmunks, squirrels and opossum. Ladybugs, ants, and spiders can feast on ticks. Birds that live on the ground – chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, wild turkey and peacocks – are known to gobble them up too.

Tick repellent chemicals can be applied to the skin before a possible exposure (like a walk in the woods … or the backyard). DEET, picaridin, lemon eucalyptus oil, and IR3535 (a plant based chemical) have all been shown to be effective. Permethrin (derived from the chrysanthemum) can be applied to clothes.

Checking your body (or your child’s body) for ticks is crucial, either after being outside or before going to bed. Finding the tick and removing it before it can transmit any bacteria is the preferred approach. If you have any questions about when to see your pediatrician about a tick bit, please don’t hesitate to call our offices.

Summer Activites

By Ned Ketyer, MD – Editor, www.ThePediaBlog.com

Two weeks after its previous update, the Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention issued new guidelines for people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The new rules are clear: > If you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did before the pandemic. > Fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance. > If you haven’t been vaccinated yet, find a vaccine.

The recommendations reflect the reality that all three COVID-19 vaccines approved for emergency use and distributed in the U.S. for the last six months are extraordinarily effective in preventing serious disease from SARS-CoV-2. The evidence is also stronger that fully vaccinated people are unlikely to have asymptomatic infection or transmit the virus to others. While it’s still not known just how long protection from the vaccine will last, or how much the vaccines prevent emerging variants of the virus, it is clear that vaccine efficacy doesn’t fade quickly.

People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, or two weeks after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Fully vaccinated people can be reassured

that it’s safe to resume all outdoor and indoor activities without observing precautions: > Indoor and outdoor activities pose minimal risk to fully vaccinated people. > Fully vaccinated people have a reduced risk of transmitting SARS-CoV-2 to unvaccinated people. > Fully vaccinated people should still get tested if experiencing COVID-19 symptoms > Fully vaccinated people should not visit private or public settings if they have tested positive for COVID-19 in the prior 10 days or are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. > Fully vaccinated people should continue to follow any applicable federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations.

It’s important to stop here and say that these new guidelines are meant for vaccinated people only. Nothing has changed for people who are not fully vaccinated yet, or those who choose to remain unvaccinated. Instead, they must proceed with caution; prevention measures (wearing face masks in public, social distancing six feet apart, hand washing) are required for most outdoor and all indoor activities. For example, unvaccinated people can “walk, run, wheelchair roll, or bike outdoors with members of your household” without wearing a face mask. Attending “a small, outdoor gathering with fully vaccinated family and friends” without a face mask is also permitted. For everything else, the risk of transmitting the virus or getting sick from it remains high and masks must be worn.

In situations where unvaccinated and vaccinated people gather together indoors and outdoors, the prudent policy during a global pandemic is to follow commonsense layers of protection and have everyone mask up and keep their distance from one another. Unless venues like stores, restaurants, and theaters can effectively separate those who are vaccinated from those who aren’t, it would be wise for everyone to wear a mask and stay socially distant in public indoor spaces. Having to show proof of vaccination isn’t a practical solution. Nor is trusting those who choose to remain unvaccinated to do the right thing and protect others by wearing a face mask or just staying home.

Pediatrician Jaime Friedman reminds her patients that things aren’t back to normal… yet:

Curious about the new CDC mask guidelines? Many of us are. On the one hand it will be nice to feel “back to normal”. On the other hand, you don’t know who is vaccinated and who isn’t and the vaccine doesn’t prevent 100% of infections, just severe illness and death. Furthermore, children under 12 can’t be vaccinated and 12-15 year olds are just staring to get their shots.

So, I will still wear my mask in the office and in public (indoors or if closely gathered outdoors). I will also recommend that unvaccinated children over the age of 2 continue to wear masks and all children continue to avoid gathering close with other children or unvaccinated adults.

We are almost there you guys! Don’t give up yet!

The best solution for a rapid return to normalcy is for every American 12 and older to get the vaccine as expeditiously as possible.

Don’t delay! Summer fun is waiting!

Choosing Safer Activities

Accessible link: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/participate-in-activities.html