A seven-week-old child from Idaho who contracted COVID-19 is preventing for her life because the dad and mom urge folks to guard themselves from the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Ostara Clure was identified with COVID-19 and pneumonia on January 20 after she wakened struggling to breathe, the Idaho State Journal reported.

Clure's dad and mom took the kid to see a physician and he or she was later rushed to the emergency room after her coronary heart charge spiked.

"All I might do is sit there and cry. I could not breathe, I simply cried," the child's mom, Carli Valentine, informed the Journal.

The mother-of-three mentioned that her daughter's expertise with COVID-19 had modified her views on the illness.

"Earlier than, I did not imagine in the entire COVID. I did not do the masks, did not do something and now it is affected my daughter, my children. The opposite two got here up constructive. It is affected all of our household round us," Valentine mentioned.

"It modifications all our beliefs about it and the way scary it truly is. As a result of we're now frightened about each single individual in our household whereas we're additionally frightened about our daughter who's preventing for her life with it. It is actual, it is life-changing. Positively watch out; do the hand-washing, put on face masks. Do no matter you want to do to guard your self."

Clure is unable to breathe on her personal and medical doctors have positioned her on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine—a therapy used to assist severely in poor health COVID-19 sufferers.

An ECMO is a life assist gadget that pumps and oxygenates a affected person's blood exterior the physique, in instances the place the guts and lungs are unable to take action adequately.

Clure was initially hospitalized at St. Luke's Kids's Hospital in Boise, Idaho the place her situation deteriorated to the purpose that medical workers moved her to the pediatric intensive care unit.

St. Luke's system medical director Dr. Kenny Bramwell informed the Journal that Clure is without doubt one of the worst COVID-19 sufferers he has seen.

However regardless of medical doctors at St. Luke's attempting numerous therapies and several types of ventilators, Clure's situation continued to worsen and he or she was transferred to a hospital in Salt Lake Metropolis, Utah, the place an ECMO was accessible.

"That is definitely a really heroic measure for a really sick two-month-old little one and I am hopeful that will probably be of assist," Bramwell mentioned.

Valentine and Clure's father have been staying with the child in hospital across the clock, away from their two different younger kids.

"We're simply attempting to let her get higher however issues have been going up and down," Valentine mentioned. "There isn't any connecting, there is no satisfying moments. [She's] only a small child and he or she exhibits us how exhausting she's preventing but it surely's exhausting to look at and be right here day-after-day and see how exhausting she has to struggle."

Pneumonia is often the results of a bacterial an infection, though viral infections (equivalent to coronavirus) can even immediate the illness, mentioned the UK's NHS. A few of the most at-risk teams embody infants and really younger kids, aged folks, and individuals who smoke.

In line with the American Academy of Pediatrics, reported COVID-19 instances amongst kids have spiked "dramatically" in 2022 because the Omicron variant surges. Greater than 3.5 million little one COVID-19 instances have been recorded in January.

For the week ending January 27, greater than 808,000 extra little one COVID-19 instances have been reported, which was down from the height degree of 1,150,000 reported the week ending January 20. However little one instances stay excessive at virtually triple the height degree of the Delta surge in 2021.

This has led to a spike in pediatric hospitalizations. Whereas kids are considerably much less more likely to develop into severely in poor health with COVID-19, consultants say that severe instances of the illness can nonetheless happen in younger folks.

In uncommon instances, some kids with COVID-19 go on to develop a severe situation often called multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) that's characterised by irritation in several components of the physique together with the guts, lungs, kidneys, mind, pores and skin, eyes and gastrointestinal organs.

A baby in hospital
Inventory picture exhibiting a child in hospital. A seven-week-old child with COVID-19 from Idaho is preventing for her life. iStock