As schools across the country re-open, there’s alarming new evidence that children are becoming major vectors of COVID-19.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, more than 250,000 pediatric cases of the virus were reported between August 26 and September 2nd, the most recent period for which there is data. That’s a pandemic high. Child cases represented over a quarter of all COVID-19 infections diagnosed during that seven-day period.
ABC News breaks down the numbers:
The weekly figure now stands nearly 300 times higher than it was in June, when just 8,400 pediatric cases were reported over the span of a week.
The South now accounts for more than half of all new pediatric infections, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a similar trend, the rate of pediatric hospital admissions per 100,000 people is also at one of its highest points of the pandemic, up by 600% since the Fourth of July, according to federal data. The admission rate is also nearly 308% higher than it was a year ago.
“After declining in early summer, child cases have increased exponentially, with over 750,000 cases added between August 5 and September 2,” the AAP explained, adding “Over 5 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic.”
Children are less likely to experience the worst impacts of COVID-19, but nearly 2,500 children were hospitalized with the virus last week, another record number.
The AAP concludes, “At this time, it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is uncommon among children. However, there is an urgent need to collect more data on longer-term impacts of the pandemic on children, including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”
CNN reports that the rise in pediatric COVID-19 is consistent with wider trends:
The country’s Covid-19 case rates have generally soared since the start of the summer as the highly contagious Delta variant spread — and the current average is more than three times higher than it was a year ago.
“We have 75 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not yet vaccinated. If we get the overwhelming majority of (these people) vaccinated, we could turn this around even as we go into the cooler weather of the fall,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, told CNN on Tuesday.
Sara Bode, medical director of school health services at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told Scientific American that universal mask wearing in schools is a powerful tool in curbing outbreaks among children:
Schools without mask mandates subject children not only to a higher risk of viral transmission but also to the experience of seesawing between virtual and in-person classes as outbreaks lead to school closures, followed by reopenings. Some districts are weakening mandates and turning them into vaguer recommendations. Bode says such moves are “taking away a safety measure that we know worked, and that’s a recipe to definitely go back to all-virtual learning, back and forth, and that is detrimental to [children’s] mental health.”
Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah – all Republican-led states – have adopted bans on mandatory mask wearing in schools. The Department of Education is examining whether those rules discriminate against students with disabilities, who may not be able to safely attend classes alongside unmasked peers.
Florida, Texas, Arkansas, and Arizona have also attempted to erect barriers to universal mask wearing in schools, but legal challenges have thus far delayed their implementation.