Health & Safety

Keeping Kids Safe On & Off the Baseball Field

With baseball season now upon us, there is a lot of excitement for young ballplayers. Just like...

Are Electric Bikes (E-Bikes) Safe?

Biking offers kids fun, freedom and great exercise. But, the standard bikes that we grew up with...

Keeping Kids Safe While Playing Extreme Sports

During the winter season, families here in Irvine enjoy participating in a number of sports at...

Sports Injuries in Irvine: Are We Prepared?

On January 2nd, NFL football player Damar Hamlin suffered a sudden cardiac arrest on the field after a tackle during the Bills-Bengals NFL game. If this had happened to one of our Irvine youth or adult recreational sports players, are we confident that the individual would have had the same life-savings emergency medical treatment that saved Hamlin’s life?

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The Latest Update on COVID-19 & Vaccines for Young Children

While fully vaccinated/boosted individuals are less likely to experience severe disease requiring hospitalization, Orange County is now considered a “high transmission area” with hundreds and hundreds of new cases and re-infections of COVID-19 being reported across the County every day.
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This Summer: One More Drowning is One Too Many

It’s that time of the year again — pool season! As temperatures rise, there’s nothing more fun for kids to do than splash away in the nearest pool.
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The COVID-19 Pandemic: Two Years In

January 20th marked the second anniversary of the first case of COVID-19 reported in the United States.

Since that time, more than 79 million cases have been reported throughout the nation and nearly one million of our fellow Americans have died from this horrible virus.

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Another Horrible Week in Irvine as COVID-19 Cases Continue to Surge

During the second week in January, the Orange County Health Care Agency reported 55,815 new cases of COVID-19 among our County’s residents.

The number of hospitalizations also sharply increased, with 1,154 hospital beds filled with COVID-19 patients across the County. That is an increase of 379 since this time a week ago. And, we lost another 15 Orange County residents in the past week.

Here in Irvine, there have been 5,555 new cases of COVID-19 reported among our Irvine neighbors this past week.

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Another COVID-19 Surge Across Orange County & Here in Irvine

On January 10th, the OC Health Care Agency reported a staggering 22,945 new cases of COVID-19 for the day; and 964 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. (87% of those hospitalized are unvaccinated.)

In just over three weeks, there have been 79,423 new cases of COVID-19 reported in Orange County and 62 more residents in the County have died from this horrible virus.

During the same time period, there have been 7,710 new cases of COVID-19 reported here in Irvine, and we have lost another neighbor to the virus.

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COVID-19 Resources for Families

Throughout the pandemic, it has been very difficult for parents to separate fact from fiction from opinion.

To help, Orange County pediatricians, UC Irvine, and the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) are working together to provide accurate information that parents can trust.

I’m proud to be a member of a working group that has been established within the health care and education community to help families make data-driven decisions for their children.
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We Must Work Together to Keep Our Kids Safe

Here in Orange County, we are in the midst of another severe surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, even though we have access to remarkably safe and effective vaccines.

The COVID-19 pandemic has largely become a pandemic of the unvaccinated — people who are eligible but, so far, refuse to get vaccinated.

These individuals have become vectors of disease for younger children (under 12) who are not yet eligible to be vaccinated.
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The COVID-19 Pandemic Isn’t Over Yet … And Our Children Are Most at Risk

Over the past month, California and Orange County cases of COVID-19 have increased. As the CDC has repeated, this is now a pandemic largely of the unvaccinated.

As long as there are unvaccinated individuals, the highly contagious and highly transmissible Delta variant will continue to spread throughout the community, and new variants will continue to emerge.

In order to stop the spread of this deadly virus once and for all, we must encourage everyone we know to get vaccinated, including children 12 years of age and older.
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