Man shares painful diary of covid-19 from his ICU 5:47
(CNN) -
The idea that COVID-19 doesn't hit children hard is losing steam, in part due to a more contagious variant than any we've seen before.
Since this time last year, more than 45,000 children have been hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
As of Tuesday, an average of 192 children with Covid-19 were admitted to U.S. hospitals every day for the past week, CDC data shows.
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That's a 45.7% increase over the previous week in new daily hospitalizations among COVID-19 patients ages 0-17.
As adults debate orders for school mask use and whether older children should be vaccinated, the now dominant delta variant continues to target those who are not vaccinated, including some children too young to be vaccinated.
Doctors say it's crucial to protect children against the delta variant, not only to preserve in-person learning and protect your own health, but to help prevent even more aggressive variants from emerging.
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The most relevant data about the variant delta 6:13
Childhood infections and hospitalizations due to covid-19 increase
Since last school year, a more contagious variant, alpha, has been replaced by an even more contagious variant, delta, as the dominant variant of coronavirus in the United States.
The delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox, says the CDC.
In just two months, delta went from 3% to represent more than 93% of coronavirus cases in the US, according to the agency.
And in just one week, the US had an 84% increase in new COVID-19 cases among children, the American Academy of Pediatrics said.
Severe pediatric COVID-19 cases are more frequent in boys and minors with chronic diseases
The 71,726 new pediatric cases from July 22 to July 29 marked "a substantial increase" from the previous week, when 39,000 new cases were reported among children, the AAP said.
And with the increase in pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19, not only children with pre-existing conditions are hospitalized.
Nearly half (46.4%) of children hospitalized with COVID-19 between March 2020 and June 2021 had no known underlying condition, according to CDC data from nearly 100 US counties.
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Covid-19 deaths in children should not be ignored, says CDC chief
While children are much less likely to die from COVID-19 than adults, deaths remain significant, said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
At least 416 children ages 0 to 18 have died of covid-19, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.
"I think we fall for this misconception of saying that only 400 of these 600,000 deaths from covid-19 have been in children," Walensky said in July.
"Children are not supposed to die. So 400 is a huge number."
A baby with covid-19 is airlifted due to a shortage of beds at a hospital in Houston
The number of COVID-19 deaths among children is more than double the number of pediatric flu deaths reported by the CDC between 2019-2020, which are the worst flu seasons since 2010.
The main reason COVID-19 is more deadly to children than other infectious diseases is because many children are vaccinated against other diseases, said Dr. James Campbell, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. .
"No one dies of polio, no one dies of measles in America. No one dies of diphtheria," Campbell told CNN last month.
But while children ages 12 to 17 can get the covid-19 vaccine, millions have not.
Covid-19 cases in children are on the rise in the United States
And it could take several more months before a vaccine is licensed for children under 12 years of age.
Georgia, Rebecca Calloway's 7-year-old daughter, is one of a group of thousands of young children who test various doses of COVID-19 vaccines to make sure they are safe and effective before they are licensed.
Part of why Calloway enrolled Georgia in the pediatric vaccine trial is because she recently lost her 3-year-old daughter to another unexpected illness, type 1 diabetes, and she doesn't want more families to lose a child to Covid-19.
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While infant deaths from covid-19 and type 1 diabetes are rare, "you don't want to be that statistic," Calloway said.
Protecting children from covid-19 is essential to keep them in face-to-face school
An elementary school student disinfecting her hands in the classroom due to the covid-19 pandemic.
Faced with the highly contagious delta variant, the CDC now recommends that students in kindergarten through high school wear masks at school, along with teachers and visitors.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended the use of masks in schools for everyone over the age of 2 years.
"Our children deserve to have safe, full-time learning, in person, with prevention measures in place. And that includes masking for everyone in schools," Walensky said.
Some students are returning to schools for the first time in a year.
But long-awaited classroom learning can quickly derail due to infection or an outbreak.
In Atlanta, more than 100 Drew Charter School students had to self-quarantine after nine students and five staff members tested positive.
And covid-19 doesn't need much to close a school again.
Even one case can have a ripple effect on students, faculty, and staff.
"We need adults to run the schools, and if my adults are sick or in need of quarantine, I don't have adults present to provide the education," said Carlee Simon, superintendent of Alachua County Public Schools in Florida.
Florida reports high number of new covid-19 cases this week
The school board voted to require the use of masks for the first two weeks of school, but the Florida governor banned the mandates on the use of masks in schools and threatened to cut funding for schools that require masks.
And that has the superintendent concerned.
"When we have families that don't want to put face masks on their children, what they are doing is not just increasing the chances that they will have to be quarantined," Simon said.
If a student gets sick, "there will also be other students who did have [wearing] masks and who would also need to be quarantined."
"Everybody wants to move on. Nobody wants to have [wear] face masks forever," Simon said.
But "we would like to be able to be safe and have instructional time with our students."
In addition to the use of masks in schools, the CDC recommends combining other strategies, such as better ventilation, physical distancing, and screening tests.
Expert gives advice for returning to face-to-face classes 4:23
Children can accidentally help drive new variants
Protecting children from getting COVID-19 can help everyone in the long run, doctors say.
As the coronavirus continues to spread and replicate in new people, the more likely it is to mutate.
Some mutations can give the virus an advantage and more aggressive variants can emerge, such as those that could evade vaccines.
Why the delta variant is spreading much faster than other variants of the coronavirus
"That is, of course, the concern," Walensky said.
Fully vaccinated people are less likely to be infected with the delta variant.
But unvaccinated people, including unvaccinated children, are more susceptible to infection and may unknowingly help create new variants, Offit said.
"We will not be able to stop this pandemic until we have a significant percentage of the population (fully) vaccinated," he said.
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Long Covid and MIS-C Syndrome May Leave Lasting Impacts
Like adults, children can be susceptible to "long covid," annoying symptoms that last for weeks or months after a coronavirus infection.
"Even for young people who consider their risk for severe covid to be low, the long-term consequences can be quite dire," said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health this spring.
CDC Warns US Doctors About Covid-19-Related Childhood Illness
In some cases, children who start out with mild or even no symptoms of COVID-19 end up hospitalized weeks or months later with a condition called MIS-C, multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children.
MIS-C is "a rare but serious condition associated with COVID-19 in which different parts of the body become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs," says the CDC.
It occurs when "the virus induces your body to produce an immune response against its own blood vessels," which can cause inflammation of the blood vessels, said pediatrician Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Center for Vaccine Education at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Often times, children with MIS-C do not start out very ill with COVID-19.
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"Usually children are detected incidentally for having (coronavirus). Someone in the family was infected, a friend was infected, so they did a PCR test. And they were positive ... so they are fine", Offit he told CNN.
"Then a month goes by and they develop a high fever. And evidence of lung, liver, kidney or heart damage. That's when they come to our hospital."
At least 4,196 cases of MIS-C were reported between February 2020 and June 2021, including 37 deaths, the CDC said.
He said 99% of MIS-C patients had tested positive for coronavirus, and the other 1% had had contact with someone with covid-19.
The median age of the MIS-C patients was 9 years.
If we want children to go back to school and the economy to prosper, more people need to get vaccinated, says expert
"The CDC is working to learn more about why some children and teens develop MIS-C after having COVID-19 or after having contact with someone with COVID-19, while others do not," says the CDC.
"Based on what we now know about MIS-C, the best way to protect your child is by taking daily steps to prevent your child and the entire family from contracting the virus that causes COVID-19."
The best steps parents can take to protect their children include vaccinating and vaccinating children 12 and older, Walensky said.
And even if one of the parents is fully vaccinated, there is a small chance that they could get an asymptomatic infection and pass the virus on to their children.
That is why it is a good idea for all parents of young children to wear masks in public.
But the best way to protect unvaccinated children, Walensky said, "is to surround them with vaccinated people."
Delta variant could evolve, experts say 0:51
CNN's Deidre McPhillips and Jen Christensen contributed to this report.
coronavirus Covid-19 Delta variant
