COVID Hospitalizations Among Children Up In FL As Omicron Spreads

FLORIDA — The omicron coronavirus variant has found a new population to exploit — unvaccinated children — and that has spurred a 35 percent increase nationwide in pediatric hospitalizations in the past week, according to new federal health data.

Two dozen states and New York City reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention an increase in pediatric hospitalizations — that is, children 17 and younger — as the virus surges nationwide.

Florida has seen a 127.8 percent increase in hospitalizations of children with COVID-19 week-over-week, according to the CDC.

The seven-day average of those 17 and younger who hospitalized with coronavirus is 18 daily from Dec. 19-25, CDC data shows. During the week prior to this, Dec. 12-18, the seven-day average for pediatric hospitalizations was eight daily.

There’s a higher increase in hospitalizations of children in Florida than other age groups. The seven-day average for hospitalizations of all age ranges increased 62.2 percent during the same timeframe, CDC data shows.

“We are seeing that more cases are being diagnosed in children who present to the emergency room. Most of those children do go home,” said Dr. Juan Dumois, a pediatric infectious diseases physician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, told ABC Action News. “We are having a few that are being hospitalized, so the numbers are just starting to increase.”

Data from the Florida Department of Health’s COVID-19 Weekly Situation Report also shows a dramatic increase in children testing positive for coronavirus. The number of new cases for Floridians 19 and younger quadrupled last week.

From Dec. 10-16, there were 4,529 new cases among those 19 and under, FDOH said. The number of cases among this age range jumped to 20,066 from Dec. 17-23 and the new case positivity rate increased, as well.

Children 12 to 19 years old saw the largest increase with 11,677 new cases and a 15.6 percent positivity rate among those tested Dec. 17-23, FDOH said. The positivity rate for all ages tested in Florida that week was 13.8 percent with 125,201 total new cases added.

“The truth is our numbers rose significantly while the kids were out of school," Medical Director at Florida Pediatric Research Dr. Akinyemi Ajayi told Bay News 9. "The expectation is they are going to just go up astronomically once schools reopen.”

The 199,000 pediatric COVID-19 cases reported nationwide for the week ending Dec. 23 represent a 50 percent increase in positive cases for that age group since the beginning of December. More than 7.5 million children — or about 1 in 10 in the United States — have tested positive for the virus since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020.

This is the 20th week in a row with pediatric COVID-19 cases above 100,000. Since the first week in September, more than 2.5 million U.S. children have become infected with the coronavirus illness.

The spread of the illness among children is keenly felt in New York City, where the number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 increased fivefold. About half of those kids are under the age of 5 and not eligible to get vaccinated.

Related: NYC Sees Huge Spike In Children Hospitalized With COVID-19

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, which susses out CDC data to provide insight into virus trends among children, said that so far, it appears that severe COVID-19 illnesses are uncommon.

“However,” the groups said on the AAP website, “there is urgent need to collect more data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as the longer-term impacts of the pandemic on children, including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”

Experts warn the pediatric cases reported so far may be a calm before the storm brewing in holiday gatherings.

"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," Dr. Claudia Hoyen, director of pediatric infection control at UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, told CNN.

"It's going to be a very interesting couple of weeks. We've just had all of these kids mixing together with everybody else during Christmas. We have one more holiday to get through with New Year's, and then we'll be sending everybody back to school.”