This has already led to unprecedented numbers of kids being hospitalized.
More than 1,500 kids were hospitalized last week with COVID-19, setting a new seven-day record and a nearly 30 percent increase from the previous week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And it’s only going to get worse, doctors say.
“The timing couldn’t be worse as far as going back to school, and many locations have already started school,” said Dr. Kimberly Sanford, president of the American Society for Clinical Pathology. ”You’ve got 20 to 30 adolescents and children in a single classroom, in a very confined space with an incredibly contagious virus in the community. This is just another set up for another surge or increased surge of the Delta variant that we’re already seeing.”
The surge is mostly spreading among the unvaccinated, including the group of kids under 12 years old, for which the vaccination isn’t yet available. And it might be making them sicker than the previous variants.
“We’re seeing more pneumonia than we’ve seen from previous strains,” said Dr. Vanessa Walker of the Pulmonary Medicine Associates. “Before, kids were getting admitted with this multisystem inflammatory syndrome. We’re still seeing it, but we’re seeing many more kids with pneumonia and respiratory failure on ventilators than with previous strains. These are healthy kids with no problems that are ending up in the ICU.”
Walker said most of the people showing up at the hospital with COVID-19 are unvaccinated. “It’s a numbers game,” she said. “All the people who are getting infected and showing up at the hospital, for the most part, are unvaccinated and the largest proportion of unvaccinated people are our kids who can’t get vaccinated."
“You (adults) can’t be selfish,” Walker said. “What are young kids going to do? They’re going to spread it to other kids who can’t be vaccinated and make this linger.”
Though children under 12 can’t yet be vaccinated, those 12 to 17 are eligible, but many still aren’t being vaccinated either.
Sanford believes misinformation about the virus and the vaccine, and the notion that young people are immune to getting more than mild symptoms is keeping people in this group from getting vaccinated. “This is just a complete misunderstanding that it’s going to be a mild illness in someone who is in their 20s or a teenager or even a young child under 12,” she said. “We’re seeing more and more people being infected because it’s as contagious as the chickenpox virus.”
Sanford said she is hoping that FDA approval of the vaccines will come soon and that will reassure some of the unvaccinated population to go ahead and get vaccinated and have their children vaccinated. “I also think you’ll still have holdouts as some people are against vaccines in general, and it will probably take a mandate from the school systems once it’s FDA approved to really get that herd immunity we’re looking for. Just like when we had to prove vaccination status for all the other diseases to prevent breakouts, that’s what’s going to have to happen.”
Until that happens, the best schools can do is to continue to ask children to wear masks and continue social distancing where appropriate.
“This age group is really exhausted about wearing masks and it feels inhibiting to them,” Sanford said. “So much of children socialization is about facial gesturing and these kinds of social interactions which are normal are really hindered by masks and by having to stay apart from each other.”
Walker added that without these measures and in the absence of more people getting vaccinated, the virus will run rampant through the schools.
“This is going to run through the schools, kids are going to test positive and the counties are going to quarantine people,” she said. “There’s going to be so much more disruption but [it doesn’t have to be that way] if everybody would just wear masks regardless of vaccination status.”
