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A child in the hospital:
Photo: Sebastian Rose / Getty Images
The number of children hospitalized with omicron infections is increasing in the United States.
The New York Health Department even issued a warning on December 24th.
"We're making New Yorkers aware of this noticeable surge so that pediatricians, parents, and caregivers can take action to protect our youngest," State Health Commissioner Mary T. Bassett is quoted as saying.
“Protect your children from the age of five by getting them fully vaccinated.
Protect children under the age of five by ensuring that everyone around them is protected through vaccinations, boosters, wearing masks, avoiding crowds, and testing. "
The Washington Post also reported that pediatric hospital admissions in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania also increased significantly due to Omikron.
According to the New York Times, the increase in pediatric cases is twice as high as that in adults.
Even if that may sound unsettling, it initially says little about whether Omikron is more dangerous for children and adolescents than previous variants of the coronavirus.
It is simply not yet possible to say with certainty whether Omikron carries a different risk for children and adolescents than Delta or other Sars-CoV-2 variants.
The best protection: vaccination
A researcher quoted by the "New York Times" already suspects that the risk of serious illnesses is lower with Omikron.
The fact that the number of young patients in the clinics is increasing only reflects the fact that the Omikron variant is extremely widespread and that a corresponding number of children become infected in a very short time, and that children and adolescents are vaccinated less often than adults.
In the USA, as in the EU, no vaccine has yet been approved for children under five years of age.
According to the Times, booster vaccinations are only available from the age of 16.
"What we see in our intensive care unit makes it clear that vaccination is the most important means of preventing children from getting Covid-19," James Schneider of the pediatric intensive care unit at Cohen's Children's Medical Center in New York told the newspaper.
In Germany, the Standing Vaccination Commission recommends Covid-19 vaccination for all children and adolescents from the age of twelve.
She also advises those five to eleven-year-olds who have an increased risk of severe disease due to previous illnesses or who have relatives or contacts at high risk of severe Covid disease to be vaccinated.
In addition, all five to eleven year olds to whom this does not apply can be vaccinated if they so wish.
wbr
