US sees spike in kids hospitalisations due to Delta variant

COVID-19 cases, emergency department visits, and hospital admissions increased from June to August among children aged 0-17 years in the US, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In a two-week period (August 14-27), COVID-19-related emergency department visits and hospital admissions among the mentioned age group in the states with the lowest vaccination coverage were 3.4 and 3.7 times than in those with the highest inoculation rate, respectively, said the study published on Friday in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Report.

Meanwhile, weekly COVID-19-associated hospitalisation rates among children and adolescents rose nearly five-fold during the period from late June to mid-August, coinciding with increased circulation of the highly transmissible Delta variant, said a second CDC report published also on Friday.

Hospitalisation rates were 10 times higher among unvaccinated than among fully inoculated adolescents, said the report, adding the proportions of hospitalised children and adolescents with severe disease were similar before and during the period of Delta predominance. Meanwhile, child COVID-19 cases are up, with about 204,000 cases added last week, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.

For the week ending August 26, children accounted for 22.4 per cent of reported weekly cases, it added. So far, nearly 4.8 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic in the US early last year, said a report by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.