Record number of US children hospitalized with COVID-19, mostly unvaccinated | News, Sports, Work

Parker McKenzie (10 years old, right) is the distraction of Haley Rogers, a certified child life specialist at Franklin County’s first COVID-19 vaccine clinic for children ages 5-11 at the National Children’s Hospital. With help, you will receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from the nurse’s practitioner Amy Wall. Wednesday, November 3, 2021, in Columbus, Ohio. The proliferation of COVID-19 cases in the United States With the surge in Omicron fuel, hospital children are approaching record numbers, and experts lament that most young people are not. Vaccination. (AP Photo / Paul Vernon)

Seattle — The surge in COVID-19 cases in the United States The surge in Omicron fuel has left children in hospitals in record numbers, experts lamenting that most young people have not been vaccinated. increase.

“It’s so sad” Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, said. “Last year it was hard enough, but now we know there is a way to prevent it all.”

During the week of December 22-28, an average of 378 children under the age of 17 were admitted to the hospital with coronavirus. This increased 66% from the previous week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

According to the CDC, previous highs during the pandemic process were in early September, with an average of 342 hospitalizations per day for children.

With further hope, children continue to make up a small percentage of children hospitalized with COVID-19: an average of nearly 10,200 people of all ages per day in the same week of December. Did. And many doctors say that young people seem to be less ill than young people who came during the summer delta surge.

According to CDC data, about 14% are fully protected two months after vaccinations aged 5 to 11 years are approved. The rate is higher for 12 to 17 years old, about 53%.

A study published by the CDC on Thursday confirmed that the serious side effects of the Pfizer vaccine in children aged 5 to 11 years were rare. The findings are based on approximately 8 million doses given to adolescents of that age group.

Dr. Albert Ko, a professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases at the Graduate School of Public Health, said low vaccination rates were partly a timing issue. Currently, a second vaccination is planned.

According to Ofit, two-thirds of vaccinated children who were treated in the hospital about a week ago have underlying illnesses at risk, such as chronic lung disease, and more generally obesity. Despite this, he was not vaccinated. Only one person was vaccinated under the age of five.

The scene hurts my heart.

“They are suffering from breathing, coughing, coughing, coughing.” Ofit said. “A handful was sent to the ICU to calm down. My parents were crying when I put the attachment attached to the ventilator down my throat.”

He said neither his parents nor his siblings had been vaccinated.

The next four to six weeks will be rough, he said: “This is a virus that propagates in winter.”

Six-year-old Aria Shapiro spent her 12th day at the Phoenix Children’s Hospital on Thursday. She tested positive for COVID-19 after receiving the first dose of the vaccine on 17 December.

Aria being considered “Medically fragile” She suffered from epilepsy, had long-term seizures in the hospital, and had to temporarily lower her respiratory tract to her throat, which has improved since then.

“We lived for two years to prevent her from getting infected with COVID and finally went to vax, and one thing we didn’t want to happen was happening.” Her mother, Sarah Shapiro, said. “It wasn’t enough time for her body to make antibodies. She eventually got infected with COVID.”

Overall, new COVID-19 cases of Americans of all ages surged to record highs. The average number of people per day is 300,000, which is 2.5 times the number two weeks ago. According to the CDC, highly contagious Omicron accounted for 59% of new cases last week.

Still, this variant causes milder illness than previous versions, and there are early signs that the combination of vaccines and boosters seems to protect people from their worst effects.

In California, 80 children infected with COVID-19 were hospitalized during the week of December 20-26, compared to 50 in the last week of November, health officials said.

Seattle Children’s also reports that the number of children hospitalized in the past week has skyrocketed. And while they’re not as seriously ill as those hospitalized in the summer, Dr. John McGuire warned that it was an early stage of the Omicron wave and that the full impact would be revealed in the coming weeks.

New York health officials are also alerting.

The number of children admitted to New York City for the week at COVID-19 went from 22 to 109 between December 5th and December 24th. The number of people in New York has increased from 70 to 184. There are about 5,000 people in total. People in New York were in the hospital with COVID-19.

“When you quadruple, everyone is worried and jumps, but that’s a small percentage.” Ko said about New York City numbers. “Children are at low risk of being hospitalized, but children who are hospitalized are not vaccinated.”

Dr. Al Saketti, the emergency captain of the Virgin Medical Center in Lourdes, Camden, NJ, also said that vaccinated children handle the outbreak of Omicron very well.

“There is a big difference in how these children endure the disease, especially if they have some medical problems.” He said.

According to the Pediatrics Group, approximately 199,000 children with COVID-19 cases were reported during the week of December 16-23. This was about 20% of the more than 950,000 cases recorded that week.