Principal Nathan Hay performs temperature checks on students as they arrive on the first day of classes for the 2021-22 school year at Baldwin Park Elementary School in Orlando, Florida, on August 10, 2021.
Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
- A record number of children in the US were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the past week, according to CDC data.
- The US hit a new average of 672 new hospitalizations per day for the 0-17 age group.
- Children, however, are the least likely age bracket to get hospitalized by the virus.
A record number of children in the US are hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The US averaged 672 new hospital admissions per day for the 0-17 age group in the week of December 27 and January 2, shattering the previous record of around 340 admissions per day during a period in early September 2021.
Children, however, are the least likely age bracket to get hospitalized by the virus, according to the data.
The 0-17 age group has seen a rate of less than one new admission per 100,000 people throughout the pandemic, whereas other age brackets — like adults and elderly people — have higher rates of hospitalization.
Seniors over the age of 70 are being hospitalized at the highest rate: 13.8 per 100,000 people, according to CDC data.
Hospitalizations are also an imperfect measure of how the virus is affecting children.
Many admitted to the hospital just happen to have COVID-19 and are actually there for other reasons.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said last week that, since all hospital admissions are tested for COVID-19, many are “hospitalized with COVID, as opposed to because of COVID.”
The real reason for hospitalization might be “a broken leg, or appendicitis, or something like that,” he said in an interview with MSNBC.
Increasing hospital admissions come as the US faces a record-shattering surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
Since August 2020, there have been over 80,200 children in the 0-17 age group have been hospitalized with COVID-19, according to the CDC.
Cases have also been rising among children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
For the week ending December 30, more than 325,000 COVID-19 cases were reported in children, according to the organization’s data.
“This number is a 64% increase over the 199,000 added cases reported the week ending December 23rd and an almost doubling of case counts from the two weeks prior,” the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a statement.
Read the original article on Business Insider 
