United States has record number of children hospitalized with Covid-19

More children are being hospitalized with Covid-19 than ever before in the United States as dominance of the Ômicron variant intensifies.

An average of 672 children were admitted to hospitals across the country every day with Covid-19 during the week ending Sunday (2), the highest number in the pandemic, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This follows a record number of new cases among children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

The US had more than 325,000 new cases among children during the week ended Dec. 30, according to data published this week by the AAP. The data marks a 64% increase in new childhood cases compared to the previous week, the AAP said.

About 1,045 children under the age of 18 have died from Covid-19, the CDC said.

And across all age groups, hospitalizations for Covid-19 reached a new milestone.

As of Tuesday (4), 112,941 Americans were hospitalized with Covid-19, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The new number far exceeds the peak of hospitalizations during the Delta variant’s surge – nearly 104,000 in early September. It is also growing towards the high and pandemic number of Covid-19 patients hospitalized in a single day – 142,246 as of January 14 of last year.

“Unfortunately, this is the consequence of a highly transmissible variant, the Ômicron variant,” said US Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, on CNN on Tuesday.

In just four weeks, Ômicron jumped from about 8% of new Covid-19 infections to about 95% of new infections, according to the CDC.

The Ômicron variant is up to three times more infectious than the Delta variant, the CDC said.

Now, more hospital intensive care units are almost full.

Nationwide, 1 in 5 ICU hospitals said their beds in that unit were at least 95% occupied last week, according to DHHS data. And more than a quarter of ICU beds nationwide were occupied by Covid-19 patients.

The surgeon general reiterated what many doctors have reported this winter: the vast majority of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 are not vaccinated and have not received a booster.

“Remember that these vaccines work. These reinforcements are more important than ever,” Murthy said.

And millions of kids going back to school may soon be given a booster shot.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Vaccine Education Center, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday that “no one has suffered, I think, the social isolation of not being in school any more than the kids ”.

“I think we want children to go to school. But if we want them to go to school, we have to do everything in our power to keep them in school,” said Offit. “With the use of masks, social distancing and vaccination, I think we can really overcome that.”

“If teachers have to be vaccinated, bus drivers have to be vaccinated, children over 5 years old must be vaccinated, and then we can have what we all want, the precious thing we all want, which is to have our children back at school. But we must do this responsibly,” said Offit.

Dr. Leana Wen, a medical analyst, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday that the pandemic looks different on this point for those who are vaccinated and imposing restrictions on vaccinated people “is unreasonable.”

“At the same time, we can’t say ‘let everyone have ‘micron’ because we’re going to overload our health systems. So there’s this practical middle ground that we need to figure out,” she said. One example she used included not closing things off, “but requiring internal mask with high quality masks.”

CDC Updates on Masks and Isolation

Cloth masks can still be used to protect against the micron variant of the coronavirus, as long as they are tight-fitting and filter the air properly, the CDC said.

The CDC referred to existing guidance on mask use in updated recommendations for isolation after a positive Covid-19 test and post-exposure quarantine.

People should wear masks after testing positive and insulate for five days to protect others, because people can remain infected for up to 14 days after testing positive, the guidance says.

“The masks are designed to contain your respiratory droplets and particles. They also provide some protection against particles being expelled by other people,” noted the CDC in Tuesday’s update.

All masks must fit snugly so that air does not escape around the edges of the mask but is filtered through the material, the CDC said. All masks must have wire to fit snugly to the bridge of the nose. Cloth masks should have multiple layers of fabric, the CDC said.

Wearing a cloth mask over a surgical-style disposable mask can provide good protection, the CDC said. The CDC recommends holding cloth masks up to the light and said if the light shines, it’s too thin.

The rapid spread of the Ômicron variant helped spur the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to authorize booster doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 12 to 15, said FDA Acting Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock on Monday.

For all people 12 years and older, the FDA reduced the time between the second dose of Pfizer vaccine and the booster dose, from six to five months.

The FDA has also authorized booster doses for some children ages 5 to 11 who are immunocompromised, including those who have received an organ transplant.

‘Surprising numbers’ of Ômicron cases in a pediatric hospital

At the nation’s largest pediatric hospital, Covid-19 hospitalizations have quadrupled in the past two weeks — fueled by the Ômicron strain, the most contagious strain of the new coronavirus to hit the United States.

“We already have impressive numbers of this increase in Ômicron,” said dr. Jim Versalovic, chief pathologist at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

“We broke the previous records that were established during the Delta wave in August.”

The sequencing showed that 90% of the hospital’s recent Covid-19 patients were infected with the Ômicron variant, Versalovic said.

As the surgeon general, Versalovic said vaccinations are critical to minimizing hospitalizations for Covid-19.

However, more than 80% of school-age children in the Houston area have not been vaccinated, Versalovic said.

And more than a third of the hospital’s recent Covid-19 patients were under 5 years of age. “Unfortunately, these children still don’t have access to a vaccine,” said Versalovic.

In New York, “we’re seeing more Covid now than we’ve seen in previous waves,” said pediatrician Edith Bracho-Sanchez.

“And it’s worrying that the worst of the winter here hasn’t passed. And we are preparing for what is yet to come.”

Doctors: don’t underestimate the impact on children

Pediatricians recognized that some patients with Covid-19 may actually have sought treatment for another condition and tested positive for coronavirus.

But “it’s clear that most cases have Covid-19 as a primary or a significant contributing factor to their hospitalization,” said Versalovic, the chief pathologist at Texas Children’s.

And the recent record number of pediatric hospitalizations for Covid-19 — along with serious illness among some children — means the current increase shouldn’t be ignored.

“We would be foolish to continue downplaying Covid-19 in children at this point in the pandemic,” said Bracho-Sanchez.

Early studies suggested that Ômicron causes less severe disease than the Delta variant. But Ômicron is much more contagious.

And early research has suggested that Ômicron may cause more upper airway problems, unlike earlier strains that cause lower airway problems.

Upper airway complications can be more dangerous for young children than for adults, said Bracho-Sanchez.

“We cannot treat children’s airways as if they were adults,” she said.

“And we pediatricians know that respiratory viruses can cause (…) croup and bronchiolitis, that inflammation of the upper airways that causes problems in children.”