A record number of children are hospitalized with COVID as hospitals struggle to fight the surge in cases due to the more transmissible delta variant.
Reuters reports that there are 1,902 pediatric hospitalizations due to COVID. This makes up 2.4 percent of all hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the country. The number of hospitalizations among adults aged 18-29, 30-39 and 40-49 also hit record highs last week.
Children younger than the age of 12 are the most vulnerable to the delta variant since they are not eligible for the vaccine.
“This is not last year’s COVID. This one is worse and our children are the ones that are going to be affected by it the most,” former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Sally Goza told CNN.
The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, came out in support of a vaccine mandate for its members last week.
In the hard hit south, school districts in Florida and Texas have implemented mask mandates, defying their Republican governors’ orders banning them from doing so. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has threatened to withhold funding to districts that implement mandates. In Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is trying to overturn Dallas County’s mask mandate in the state Supreme Court, Reuters reports.
Florida is one of five states to report a record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations this month. The others were Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oregon.
400 children have died from COVID-19 in the U.S. so far.
“While kids have been more resistant, and that’s good news, they’re not immortal around this. We’ve had plenty of kids die, and we’ve had plenty of kids be impacted. And we just encourage parents to be as diligent as possible,” Children’s Hospital Association CEO Mark Wietecha told The Hill.
