Child COVID-19 infections spike

Nearly 1 million children were infected with COVID-19 in the last week according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, four times the rate of the peak of last winters’ surge.

For the week ending Jan. 13, over 981,000 child COVID-19 cases were reported, a 69 percent increase over the 580,000 cases reported the week ending Jan. 6, and a tripling of case counts from the two weeks prior.

Nearly 9.5 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, and 10 percent of all cases have been added just in the past week.

Children under 5 are particularly vulnerable right now because they are the only age group that is not currently eligible for vaccination.

Hospitalizations were up sharply the week of Jan. 8, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but dropped the week ending Jan. 15.

The AAP said it relies on state reporting for hospitalizations, and only 24 states and New York City break down hospitalizations by age.

But among states reporting, the numbers were lower than those of adults. Children ranged from 1.7 percent to 4.4 percent of total hospitalizations, and 0.1 percent to 1.5 percent of all child COVID-19 cases across those reporting states resulted in hospitalization.