Covid-19: US sees record rise in kids getting hospitalised

Washington | Increasing number of children in the US are getting hospitalised with Covid-19 than ever before, even as the country shattered a single-day record with over 1 million Covid-19 cases this week.

According to data from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an average of 672 children were admitted to hospitals every day with Covid-19 during the week ending Sunday – the highest such number of the pandemic, CNN reported.

It follows a record-high number of new Covid-19 cases among children, reveals the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).

During the week ending December 30, the US had more than 325,000 new Covid cases among children according to AAP data. This also marks a 64 per cent rise in new childhood cases compared to the previous week, the AAP said.

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As per the CDC, about 1,045 children under 18 have also died from Covid-19 in the US.

Since early December, New York City has seen a four-fold rise in children being hospitalised for Covid-19.

According to the New York State Health Department, the increase was observed in children 18 and under beginning the week of December 5, ABC news reported.

“The risks of Covid-19 for children are real,” acting State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said in a statement.

“Unfortunately NY is seeing an increase in paediatric hospitalisations (primarily amongst the unvaccinated), and they have similar [5- to 11-year-old] vaccination rates,” Dr. Erica Pan, the California state epidemiologist, said on Twitter.

“Please give your children the gift of vaccine protection as soon as possible as our case [numbers] are increasing rapidly, she added.

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Meanwhile, the US also reported an increase in hospitalisations due to Covid across all age groups, amidst the soaring cases of Omicron variant, which accounted for 95 per cent of new infections last week.

On Tuesday, 112,941 Americans were hospitalised with Covid-19, revealed data from the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Nationwide, one in five hospitals with an ICU said its beds in that unit were at least 95 per cent full last week, according to DHHS data. And more than a quarter of ICU beds nationwide were occupied by Covid-19 patients.

“Unfortunately, this is the consequence of a highly transmissible variant, the Omicron variant,” US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told CNN.

In just four weeks, Omicron jumped from an estimated eight per cent of new Covid-19 infections to an estimated 95 per cent of new infections, the CDC said.

IANS

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