Omicron is more contagious than earlier variants, it may evade children's immune systems better, and it lodges in children's smaller airway passages, causing dangerous wheezing and croup.
Until very recently, if there was one silver lining to the pandemic, it was that kids seemed to escape the worst of the virus. Very few became seriously ill or even mildly sick, compared with adults. But now that hopeful aspect may be fading. The number of children hospitalized with COVID has skyrocketed in recent weeks as the Omicron variant fueled a surge of infections, raising concerns that the latest version of the coronavirus may pose a greater threat to children.
The big issue is that Omicron is infecting a lot more people. “We refer to this as the denominator phenomenon,” says Susan Coffin, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The hospitalization rate is calculated by dividing the number of hospitalizations—the numerator—by the number of known cases—the denominator. If the denominator becomes a bigger number, so will the numerator, the thinking goes.
So why the jump in hospitalized children? “The risk of hospitalization is not zero,” Xu says. “So if you multiply it by a big number—if more kids are getting infected—you are going to see a lot more kids in the hospital.”
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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