Children hospitalised with COVID in near-record numbers

SEATTLE (AP):

The omicron-fuelled surge that is sending COVID-19 cases rocketing in the US is putting children in the hospital in close to record numbers, and experts lament that most of the youngsters are not vaccinated.

“It’s just so heartbreaking,” said Dr Paul Offit, an infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It was hard enough last year, but now you know that you have a way to prevent all this.”

During the week of December 21-27, an average of 334 children, 17 and under, were admitted per day to hospitals with the coronavirus, a 58 per cent increase from the week before, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The previous peak over the course of the pandemic was in early September, when child hospitalisations averaged 342 per day, the CDC said.

On a more hopeful note, children continue to represent a small percentage of those being hospitalised with COVID-19 – an average of over 9,400 people of all ages were admitted per day during the same week in December. And many doctors say the youngsters coming in now seem less sick than those seen during the delta surge over the summer.

The issue is timing in many cases, said Dr Albert Ko, professor of epidemiology and infectious diseases at the Yale School of Public Health. Younger children were not approved for the vaccine until November, and many are only now coming up on their second dose, he said.

Offit said none of the vaccine-eligible children receiving care at his hospital about a week ago had been vaccinated, even though two-thirds had underlying conditions that put them at risk – either chronic lung disease or, more commonly, obesity. Only one was under the vaccination age of five.

Two months after vaccinations were approved for five- to 11-year-olds, about 14 per cent are fully protected, CDC data show. The rate is higher for 12- to 17-year-olds, at about 53 per cent.

The scenes are heart-wrenching.

“They’re struggling to breathe; coughing, coughing, coughing,” Offit said. “A handful were sent to the ICU to be sedated. We put the attachment down their throat that’s attached to a ventilator, and the parents are crying.”

None of the parents or siblings was vaccinated either, he said.

The next four to six weeks are going to be rough, he said: “This is a virus that thrives in the winter.”

Overall, new cases in Americans of all ages have skyrocketed to the highest levels on record: an average of 300,000 per day, or 2 1/2 times the figure just two weeks ago. The highly contagious omicron accounted for 59 per cent of new cases last week, according to the CDC.

Still, there are early indications that the variant causes milder illness than previous versions, and that the combination of the vaccine and the booster seems to protect people from its worst effects.