They ask to protect children from covid-19 in the US 0:48
(CNN) -
Last week, the number of COVID-19 cases in children in the US reached levels not seen since the winter surge.
And with the return to school, the delta variant on the rise and the approach of winter, health authorities are concerned that it could get worse.
Following a decline in early summer, COVID-19 cases in children have risen exponentially, multiplying by more than four in the past month, according to the latest report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.
Of about 38,000 weekly cases at the end of July, more than 180,000 cases were recorded in children in the week ending August 19, according to the report.
The increase has occurred when 48.4% of the population is not yet fully vaccinated, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and when the average number of new daily cases reported amounts to more than 151,000.
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Health experts have been particularly concerned about cases among children as students return to school, many of them without mask mandates and without access to vaccines.
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The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine was fully approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday for Americans 16 and older, which the director of the National Institutes of Salud, Dr. Francis Collins told CNN it was a "ray of sunshine in the middle of all these dark covid clouds."
The covid-19 vaccine for children, pending
But children under the age of 16 do not yet have full approval for the covid-19 vaccine, and current emergency use authorizations only cover adolescents 12 years of age and older.
Children ages 5 to 11 are the next group in line to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, and an updated emergency use authorization from the FDA would see at least 28 million additional children - representing about the 9% of the US population - were eligible to receive the vaccine, according to a CNN analysis of federal data.
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But the process of licensing a vaccine for that age group might not be complete until the end of the calendar year, US Health Director Dr. Vivek Murthy told CNN's Brianna Keilar.
Timing is a problem, Dr. Paul Offit, a member of the FDA's vaccine advisory committee, told CNN because the more transmissible delta variant is spreading and the cold, dry weather of the winter months makes it easier to spread. of the virus, all while the children are sitting together in classrooms.
"You're going to have a group of totally susceptible people all in one place," he told Jake Tapper.
"That is not a good recipe," he warned.
And while it would be nice to have covid-19 vaccines for children before then, it's important that health officials take their time to make sure the vaccines are thoroughly tested and deemed safe.
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"They are going to do trials on four thousand, seven thousand, ten thousand children and then millions of children are going to be vaccinated," Offit said.
"We're moving as fast as we can, it's just not easy to move that fast when it comes to doing big vaccine trials," he explained.
Schools Take Different Approaches to Increasing Covid-19 Cases in Children
As COVID-19 cases among children increase, some school leaders are pushing for precautions, while others are banning masks.
Across Florida's 15 largest school districts, at least 11,851 students and 2,610 employees have tested positive for COVID-19, adding up to more than 14,461 confirmed cases since school districts began keeping a case registry for the 2021-22 school year, according to a CNN analysis.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has issued an executive order prohibiting schools from instituting mask-wearing mandates, but eight counties have challenged the order as cases rise.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster also issued a ban on mask-wearing mandates, prompting a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), filed Tuesday.
"This is a disability rights issue," said Susan Mizner, Director of the ACLU's Disability Rights Program.
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"Students with health conditions or disabilities that make them vulnerable to COVID have the right to attend school without endangering their health or safety. Schools that have children with these conditions have legal obligations under federal child rights laws. disabled, "Mizner said in an ACLU statement.
McMaster spokesman Brian Symmes declined to comment specifically on the lawsuit, but said: "The only truly inclusive option is to allow each parent to decide whether their child will wear a mask at school."
Strong measures in Los Angeles
On the other hand, the Los Angeles Unified School District has applied strong mitigation measures and appears to have kept infection rates below 1% during the first week of school.
The district, the second-largest in the country, enacted the measures in its more than 1,000 schools.
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Teachers and district employees must be fully vaccinated by October 15th.
Students, staff, and visitors must wear a face mask.
The district also has a "group" model.
The goal is to keep as many students as possible in the same classroom with the same group of students as often as possible.
A rigorous and costly testing initiative has also been launched.
All students and employees must undergo free weekly testing, regardless of their immunization status, in order to enter the school.
Vaccines are less effective against delta, but still crucial
The spread of the delta variant has affected the efficacy of vaccines.
But vaccination remains a strong protector against illness, hospitalization and deaths, according to reports.
According to a study published Tuesday by the CDC, once the delta variant accounted for most of the virus in circulation, the efficacy of the vaccine against COVID-19 infection dropped from 91% to 66%.
"Although we saw a reduction in the protection of the covid-19 vaccine against the delta variant, it is still a reduction of two-thirds of the risk," lead author Ashley Fowlkes, an epidemiologist with the covid-emergency Response, told CNN on Tuesday. 19 of the CDC.
But a new Los Angeles County study reaffirms that fully vaccinated people are far less likely than unvaccinated people to be hospitalized, admitted to an intensive care unit, require mechanical ventilation, or die from COVID-19.
"On July 25, infection and hospitalization rates among unvaccinated individuals were 4.9 and 29.2 times, respectively, compared to fully vaccinated individuals," wrote researchers from the County Public Health Department. Los Angeles in the study, released Tuesday by the CDC.
"It's still a very powerful vaccine," Fowlkes said, especially when it comes to more serious results.
"But we are also considering continuing to use the masks for a little longer," he added.
CNN's Ben Tinker, Virginia Langmaid, Naomi Thomas, Mallory Simon, Elizabeth Stuart, Melissa Alonso, Michael Nedelman, and Jacqueline Howard contributed to this report.
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