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May 05, 2021 at 01:11 PM
What You Need to Know
- The number of children admitted with COVID-19 grew by 4.6%.
- All adult age groups had admission counts that were lower than they were the week before.
- Some of the variants spreading in Brazil and India might be hard on younger people.
The United States seemed to be succeeding at turning a potential fourth wave of COVID-19 cases into a ripple last week, but one key indicator moved in the wrong direction: COVID cases of children.
The total number of new cases recorded during the week ending May 1 fell to 333,018, down 18% from the total for the week before, according to Community Profile Report data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The number of hospital admissions for people with COVID-19 fell 11%, to 33,868.
But the number of hospital admissions for children with COVID-19 increased 4.6%, to 886.
Federal pandemic trackers have age data for about half of the people hospitalized with COVID-19. The age group for people under age 18 was the only one with an increase in the hospitalization rate. For people ages 18 to 29, for example, the number of hospitalizations fell 3.2%, to 2,310.
Vaccination Constraints
One possible explanation for the increase in COVID-19 hospitalization rates for children, at a time when hospitalization rates for people in other age groups is falling, is that the United States has not yet approved use of any COVID-19 vaccine for people under 16.
The United States has organized aggressive efforts to vaccinate people ages 60 and older, and health care workers of all ages, and many colleges have organized vaccination campaigns for their students.
