COVID Cases Among Children Have Sharply Risen In Pennsylvania

PENNSYLVANIA — Children represent a rapidly growing portion of the new COVID-19 infections in Pennsylvania, according to the latest data from the CDC and the Department of Health, with numbers growing as the 2021-22 school year gets underway. It's at least partially a consequence of the spread of the more contagious delta variant, which officials say impacts children in a way which earlier variants did not.

In Pennsylvania, there have been more than 23,000 cases in children 18 and under from Aug. 16 to Sept. 15. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, there have been 214,919 cases in Pennsylvania children since the pandemic began, an average of just a few thousand a week.

From Sept. 8 to Sept. 14, there were 7,218 cases in Pennsylvania children ages 5 to 18.

On those same dates in 2020, there were just 630 cases. That's 11.5 times more cases in children in 2021.

This year, over the week from Sept. 3 to Sept. 9, there were 6,216 total pediatric cases, comprising roughly 30 percent of the 20,244 new cases that week across the entire state.

Already, cases in children and low vaccination rates have led some schools in eastern Pennsylvania to close.

There are other potential reasons for the increase beyond just the more contagious nature of the delta variant, officials say. For one, a large bulk of children are still not approved to receive the vaccine.

"Children under the age of 12 simply don't have the choice," Dr. Trudy Hecker, a pediatrician with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said during a recent press briefing. "So it falls to us to protect them."

However, that could change soon. Pfizer said Monday that a low dose of their vaccine was safe for children ages 5 to 11. In a trial, the children in that age group were given two doses of 10 micrograms of the vaccine, in two shots given 21 days apart (anyone 12 and older is given 30-microgram doses of the vaccine).

In citing his administration's decision to implement a mask mandate in all schools across Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf pointed to the impact which rising pediatric cases were having on some hospitals. It's an issue that led some county leaders to call for a mandate earlier.

"Even under normal circumstances, hospitals in Bucks County have limited ability to treat severe pediatric cases of any type," Bucks County Health Director David Damsker said at the time. "As our hospitals must refer all serious cases to pediatric specialty hospitals in the region, many of those same specialty pediatric hospitals are already operating at close to capacity because of non-COVID illnesses and staffing issues. While our COVID-19 cases among school-aged children remain very low, hospitals are growing concerned that any pediatric COVID-19 cases could stress the system."

The increase in pediatric cases has been ongoing for months now. There was a 277 percent increase in cases reported by child care facilities in Pennsylvania between mid-July and Aug. 28. Total cases among school aged children rose by more than 11,000 in August, and by more than 79,000 from January to the end of August, according to the Department of Health.

The good news, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, is that while cases have been increasing in number, they have not been increasing in severity, even as hospitalization numbers go up.

“What is clear from these data is community level vaccination coverage protects our children,” CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky said during a recent news briefing. "As the number of COVID-19 cases increase in the community, the number of children getting sick, presenting to the emergency room and being admitted to the hospital will also increase."

So what's next? As the 2021-22 school year continues, health experts are hopeful that fall and winter 2021 will not be as devastating as the surge a year ago in late 2020. Two trends, both the growing immunity due to the spread of the virus, and the continuing rise in the vaccination rate, bode well.

"While we await further growth in vaccine coverage amongst teens and adults this fall, and in young children later, we maintain a cautious optimism that this year will be different—and hopefully better—for many children, families and educators," the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Policy Lab said in a September update.