Updates from your team at POP
Dear patients and families,
We know this is a difficult and stressful time with a lot of changes happening day to day. We want to give you a few updates about what your team at POP is doing and recommending:
1. We have been allocated a VERY limited supply of COVID-19 tests at this time, so unfortunately we are not able to provide testing to every patient we would like to test. If your child has had direct contact with someone who has tested positive or your child has traveled internationally within the last 14 days AND is having symptoms of being sick, or is having difficulty breathing, please call our office to discuss. The turnaround time for this test is 3-4 days, so please self-quarantine the patient and household contacts during that time.
2. For patients who have respiratory symptoms but who do not meet the above criteria, we are unable to provide testing for COVID-19 at this time. The allocation of testing is changing day to day, so we will update you once we are able to provide more tests (or direct you to where you can be tested).
3. For patients who are currently healthy, we recommend social distancing and hand hygiene. Even though the evidence remains that children seem to have generally mild illness with COVID-19, it will take the efforts of our community to mitigate the severity of this outbreak.
4. We may be contacting you to reschedule or postpone some well visit appointments as we make arrangements to keep our healthy patients separated from those who may be sick. We appreciate your patience with this.
5. If you are struggling to find infant formula to feed your child, please let our office know, as we may be able to provide some samples to help you until you can locate some in stores.
6. As always, our doctors are available on call for any urgent questions or concerns. As you can imagine, the phone lines are quite busy at this time, and we appreciate your patience as we try to respond to all of our patients’ needs.
Sincerely,
Pacific Ocean Pediatrics