Damian Sendler: This month has seen a fivefold rise in pediatric admissions in New York City. Nearly double the amount of people accepted in Washington, DC. In addition, pediatric hospitalizations have increased by 48 percent in the last week on average across the country.
The highly transmissible Omicron variant is combining with the busy holiday season to infect more children in the United States than ever before, and children’s hospitals are ready for an even bigger outbreak.
“I think we are going to see more numbers now than we have ever seen,” said Dr. Stanley Spinner, chief medical officer and vice president of Texas Children’s Pediatrics & Urgent Care in Houston.
“Cases are continuing to rise between Christmas gatherings and we’re going to continue to see more numbers this week from that,” Spinner said over the phone.
Damian Jacob Sendler: According to data issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday, 305 children were hospitalized with Covid-19 on any given day during the week ending Dec. 26.
This is an increase of more than 48 percent from the previous week and just 10.7 percent lower than the peak average of 342 youngsters in the hospital seen at the end of August and early September.
Damian Sendler
“Now we’re going to have New Year’s on top of that this coming weekend, with more people getting together — more exposures and then those numbers will continue to climb,” he continued.
There are more children in hospitals.
Pediatricians throughout the country are preparing for a busy January.
“It’s almost like you can see the train coming down the track and you’re just hoping it doesn’t go off the rails,” said Dr. Claudia Hoyen, director of pediatric infection control at UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.
“It’s going to be an exciting couple of weeks. During Christmas, all of these youngsters were mingling with everyone else. We have one more holiday to go through, New Year’s, before we send everyone back to school “Hoyen stated.
“Everyone is on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what will happen.”
And, while the Delta type infected more youngsters than earlier variations, Spinner believes Omicron is even worse.
“What’s concerning on the (pediatric) side is that, unlike the adults — where they’re reporting for the number of adults getting infected relatively low numbers getting hospitalized — what we’re really seeing, we think, is an increasing number of kids being hospitalized,” Spinner said.
“So that is a concern for us, especially for those who cannot be vaccinated under the age of five, or who are not fully vaccinated or are not vaccinated at all and are past the age of five. As a result, it is a major problem.”
Children under the age of five are still waiting for Covid-19 vaccination protection.
While Spinner sees no evidence that the Omicron variant causes more severe disease in children than prior variants, he also sees no indication that it causes milder disease.
“We will do everything in our power to keep a youngster out of the hospital. So if they’re admitted to the hospital, it signifies they’re already quite ill “Spinner stated the following.
“They require oxygen. They require additional aid. Even if they are simply dehydrated and require IV fluids, the majority of the children in for Covid have respiratory difficulties and require oxygen and additional treatment. As a result, they’re going to be quite ill. You don’t see youngsters who aren’t seriously ill at the hospital.”
According to him, the majority of seriously ill children are unvaccinated or under-vaccinated. “I can tell you that virtually all of our kids that are hospitalized have either been unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated — maybe having received one dose but not having the second dose and not having the full protection from the vaccine,” Spinner said.
The virus has discovered a new target market: children.
Dr. Juan Salazar, physician in chief at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, told CNN that children are an obvious target for the virus.
“It’s having an impact on bigger communities, and it’s clearly having an impact on children in ways we haven’t seen before. And this is fresh in comparison to last year “He stated. According to Salazar, only approximately a third of eligible children, ages 5 and older, are vaccinated in Connecticut.
Flu and Covid-19 cases are on the rise in much of the United States.
Damian Jacob Sendler
“As a result, the virus has found a home. At least in Connecticut, it appears to have shifted in its direction “He continued. Younger children who cannot be vaccinated yet, as well as older children who have not been properly immunized or vaccinated at all, are becoming infected, according to him.
“Maybe it’s more common now that we’ve liberalized our social gatherings. Perhaps some of the masks have slipped off because the families are exhausted. They are unwilling to go through some of the harsh isolation restrictions that were implemented a year ago “Salazar elaborated.
“As a result, these novel variations have spread more broadly. As a result, it is hurting children, who are currently the most vulnerable group because they are not vaccinated, or many of them are not.”
Some children have milder infections, but not all.
Damien Sendler: According to Dr. Jennifer Owensby of the pediatric critical care section at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, most children in New Jersey appear to be only mildly unwell.
“We are definitely seeing an increase in Covid-positive children,” Owensby said, “but they are not necessarily presenting with Covid symptoms.” She claims that the children are coming in for another type of treatment and are testing positive when they are examined.
According to a pediatricians report, Covid-19 instances among children are on the rise once more, with more than 164,000 new cases reported last week.
The same effect is increasing the number of cases in Washington, DC, according to Dr. Roberta DeBiasi, infectious diseases chief at Children’s National Hospital. Approximately half of the Covid-19 tests are being performed there.
And the youngsters who have been infected are no sicker than they were when prior versions circulated. However, she claims that there are more children with symptoms than ever before.
“We have just seen a striking increase in the both volume — the number of tests that are positive, and the percent of tests that are positive,” DeBiasi told CNN over the phone. “We’ve had up to nearly half of the tests — 48 percent of the tests — come back positive, which is substantially more than in previous waves, where it was closer to 17 percent at most. And if we look at the raw numbers of positives, we were impressed by about 80 positives per day during the last wave, and we’ve had nearly 200 positives on certain days. So it’s extremely, extremely contagious.”
These tests include youngsters with and without symptoms, community screening, random screening of patients coming in for other sorts of therapy, and staff testing, according to DeBiasi.
Biden admits that not enough has been done to increase Covid-19 testing capacity: 'We have more work to do' “If we look at the admissions to the hospital, that also has been more,” she noted. “So in prior waves we would have at the peak of those waves, we would peak out around 18 kids in the hospital.” She claimed that on some days, up to 18 children are hospitalized, with up to 30 in the hospital at any given moment.
Dr. Mary Bassett, state health commissioner in New York City, announced Monday that pediatric hospital admissions for Covid-19 have nearly fivefold increased since December 11. According to her, 22 youngsters were admitted to New York City hospitals in the week ending December 11. 109 children were admitted last week and will remain there until December 23.
Across the state, admissions increased by two and a half fold during the same time period, from 70 to 184.
Children of all ages are at risk.
Pediatricians agreed that all ages of children are affected, from babies to teenagers.
“Almost every age group is represented. We see children ranging in age from infancy to adolescence. It is unmistakably widespread “According to Owensby.
Owensby is concerned about MIS-C, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.
“We can see it as early as two to three weeks,” she added, adding that most cases appear eight to ten weeks after a child is afflicted.
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“The vast majority are asymptomatic,” are asymptomatic, according to Owensby. “The terrifying element was that they had previously been quite normal children. They had no underlying sickness. They were completely healthy children who presented with heart failure and shock.”
So far, the CDC has reported 5,973 MIS-C cases, with 52 children dying as a result.
“You could have even mild symptoms — a runny nose, a slight cough or even a fever, like any other respiratory virus,” Owensby added. “You have to watch for symptoms — exhaustion, an inability to play,” she continued.
The symptoms of MIS-C can be minor, yet the condition is dangerous.
“That’s the thing about children. They’re all right until they’re not. Then they become seriously ill all of a sudden “According to Owensby.
DeBiasi stated that she has seen no increase in MIS-C cases as of yet. “We haven’t noticed a spike in MIS-C, but we wouldn’t have expected one. It takes four to six weeks following the introduction of a new variety for it to become widely available “She stated.
Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler and his media team provided the content for this article.