As a result of the Delta variant, hospitalization of young people under the age of 17 has increased in the United States

According to a study carried out by the Centers for Disaster Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English), during the period in which the Delta variant has become predominant in the United States, admission to the hospital from under 17 to augment. They even found that the rate of hospitalized children and adolescents was higher in areas with health coverage. vaccination it was minor.

“Emergency room visits and hospital admissions increased from June to August 2021, among people aged 0 to 17“Says the document issued by the North American entity, while they indicated that” in a period of two weeks, in August 2021, they were higher in the states with the lowest immunization coverage and lower in the states having the highest vaccination coverage ”.

What does the document indicate

Usually, the coronavirus causes mild symptoms in children and adolescents. However, some of them may require hospitalization or need to be admitted to intensive care units. In this sense, the CDC conducted a study to analyze the impact of the Delta variant in these age groups.

“Since July 2021, after Delta has become the predominant circulating variant, the rate of new cases of COVID-19 and related visits to emergency services with COVID-19 increased for those aged 0 to 17, as were hospitalizations for patients“Declare the document.

In this sense, they assured that “during the last period of 2 weeks, between August 14 and 27, 2021, the visits to the emergency rooms related to COVID-19 and hospitalizations in states with the lowest immunization coverage were between 3.4 and 3.7 times higher than in states with the highest immunization coverage”.

They even pointed out that in the survey carried out in selected hospitals, “the proportion of Covid-19 patients aged 0 to 17 who were admitted to intensive care ranged from 10% to 25% from August 2020 to June 2021 ”, while during July and August it was 20% and 18% respectively.

“Broad vaccination throughout the community is an essential part of mitigation strategies to protect pediatric populations from SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe Covid-19 disease, the CDC said.

As explained in the document, between August 2020 and the same month of 2021, the highest number of cases took place in January of this year. In this sense, they divided this age group into three groups: 0 to 4 years old, 5 to 11 years old and 12 to 17 years old, with the peak reaching 21.2, 30.1 and 51.7 cases per 100,000, respectively. people. Meanwhile, in June 2021, those numbers fell to 1.7, 1.9 and 2.9, while in August they rose again and climbed to 16.2, 28.5 and 32.7 , respectively.

Anyway, North American institutions, they clarified that “it is not clear whether the Delta variant causes more severe disease in the adult or pediatric population“, Although they did point out that these increases, compared to other mutations, could be related to” increased transmission. “In other words, by reaching more people, the chances are greater that some will need to be assisted in health centers.

“A study of children and adolescents hospitalized for Covid-19, between March 2020 and July 2021, revealed that the proportion of patients admitted to an intensive care unit during the period before the Delta (March 1, 2020 to June 19, 2021) and the period of predominance of the Delta (from June 20 to July 31, 2021) did not differ”, Standing respectively at 26.5% and 23.2%.