Children can accidentally help generate new variants of covid-19

Children go back to classrooms and this is recommended by the CDC 0:46

(CNN) - 

More children were hospitalized with COVID-19 this month than at any other time in the past year, showing how seriously the delta variant can affect any age group.

Between August 20 and 26, an average of 330 minors were admitted to hospitals every day with COVID-19, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

That's the highest rate of new COVID-19 hospitalizations among children in more than a year, a record that was broken multiple times in August, according to CDC data.

"This virus that we are dealing with now is a game changer," said Dr. Mark Kline, chief physician at Children's Hospital New Orleans.

"It is so easy to pass from person to person."

As of August 9, he said, "half of the children we have admitted were under the age of 2."

Doctors say it is crucial to protect children against the delta variant, not only for the sake of their health and to maintain face-to-face classes, but also to help prevent more aggressive variants from pushing the entire country back.

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204,000 new pediatric cases in one week

Since last school year, a more contagious variant, alpha, has been replaced by an even more contagious variant, delta, as the dominant strain of coronavirus in the United States.

In just two months, delta jumped from 3% to more than 93% of sequenced coronavirus samples in the US, the CDC said.

Now, COVID-19 cases among children have "increased exponentially," the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said Tuesday.

During the week ending Aug. 26, about more than 200,000 new childhood covid-19 cases were reported, the AAP said.

That's a "five-fold increase last month, from about 38,000 cases the week ending July 22 to nearly 204,000 last week."

Among the children hospitalized with COVID-19, many were previously healthy.

Nearly half (46.4%) of children hospitalized with COVID-19 between March 2020 and June 2021 had no known underlying conditions, according to CDC data from nearly 100 US counties.

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MIS-C and long covid can leave lasting impacts

Long-term complications of COVID-19 can be significant for children, even some who initially had mild or no symptoms, the American Academy of Pediatrics said.

All pediatric patients who test positive must have at least one follow-up examination with a pediatrician, the AAP said.

Pediatricians should be on the lookout for residual or long-term COVID-19 problems, such as respiratory symptoms, which can last for three months or more;

heart problems, including a type of heart inflammation known as myocarditis;

cognitive problems such as "brain fog";

headache;

fatigue and mental health problems, the AAP said.

Children who had moderate or severe COVID-19 may have a higher risk of later heart disease, the group of pediatricians said.

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.

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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 happens when "the virus induces your body to produce an immune response against your own blood vessels," which can cause inflammation of the blood vessels, said pediatrician Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Center for Vaccine Education at Children's Hospital. from Philadelphia.

Often times, children with MIS-C do not start out very ill with COVID-19.

"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 tested positive ... So they are fine," he said Offit.

"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 4,404 cases of MIS-C had been reported between February 2020 and July 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.

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The median age of the MIS-C patients was 9 years.

"The CDC is working to learn more about why some children and teens develop MIS-C after having COVID-19 or coming into 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 include getting vaccinated and vaccinating children 12 and older, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC.

And even if one parent is fully vaccinated, there is a small chance that they will contract an asymptomatic post-vaccination infection and pass the virus on to their children.

That's why it's a good idea for all parents of young children to wear masks in closed public spaces, Walensky said.

But the best way to protect unvaccinated children, he said, "is to surround them with vaccinated people."

How does the delta variant affect children?

1:42

Protecting children from covid-19 is essential to keep them in schools

With the highly contagious delta variant, the CDC recommends that students in kindergarten through high school, along with teachers and visitors, wear masks at school.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the use of masks in schools for everyone over the age of 2 years.

"Our children deserve to have safe, full-time face-to-face learning with prevention measures in place. And that includes wearing a mask for everyone in schools," Walensky said.

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Some students are returning to schools for the first time in a year.

But long-awaited classroom learning can quickly be derailed by an infection or an outbreak.

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In Mississippi and Florida, thousands of students just beginning their school year have already had to self-quarantine.

And covid-19 doesn't take 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 need quarantine, I don't have adults present to provide the education," said Carlee Simon, superintendent of Alachua County Public Schools in Florida.

"When we have families that don't want their children to wear a mask, what they are doing is not just (increasing) the possibility that they will have to be quarantined," Simon said.

If a student becomes infected, "they will also have other students who did have masks and who would also need to be quarantined."

"Everybody wants to move on. Nobody wants to have masks forever," Simon said.

But "we would like to be able to be safe and have instructional time with our students."

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In addition to masks in schools, the CDC recommends combining other strategies, such as better ventilation, physical distancing, and screening tests.

Children can accidentally help generate new variants

Protecting children from contracting 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, which could lead to even more contagious variants or one that could evade vaccines.

"That is, of course, the concern," Walensky said.

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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 unknowingly, they can help with the creation of new variants, Offit said.

"If we are going to continue allowing this virus to spread, we are going to continue to allow these variants to be created," he said.

"We will not be able to stop this pandemic until we have a significant percentage of the population vaccinated."

Covid-19 deaths in children should not be ignored, says CDC director

While children are much less likely to die from COVID-19 than adults, the deaths are still significant, Walensky said.

At least 496 American children have died from Covid-19, according to CDC data.

For the 2019-20 flu season, CDC reported 199 confirmed pediatric flu deaths and an estimated 434 pediatric flu deaths.

One 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 said.

But while children ages 12 to 17 can get the covid-19 vaccine, many have not.

And it could take several more months before a vaccine is licensed for children under 12 years of age.

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The 7-year-old daughter of Rebecca Calloway, Georgia, is one 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 the reason Calloway enrolled Georgia in the pediatric vaccine trial is because she recently lost her 3-year-old daughter to another unexpected disease, type 1 diabetes, and she doesn't want more families to lose a child to it. covid-19.

While infant deaths from covid-19 and type 1 diabetes are rare, Calloway said, "You don't want to be that statistic."

CNN's Deidre McPhillips and Jen Christensen contributed to this report.

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