#16,552
While COVID generally affects children less severely than older adults one of the early signals we were seeing out of South Africa with Omicron was an increase in pediatric admissions. Yesterday the New York State Department of Health issued the following Health Advisory indicating a 4-fold increase in pediatric COVID admission over the past week.
HEALTH ADVISORY: Increase in COVID-19 Pediatric HospitalizationsAcross New York State
Please distribute to the Chief Medical Officer; Departments of Pediatrics, Family Medicine, and Internal Medicine; Director of Nursing; Pharmacy Director; and primary care clinics To: Healthcare Providers, Healthcare Facilities, Pharmacies, and Local Health Departments
From: New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH)
NYSDOH is closely monitoring an upward trend in pediatric hospitalizations associated with COVID-19.
- The recent increases are concentrated in New York City and the surrounding greater metropolitan area. The sharpest rise is in New York City, with admissions rising 4-fold from the week, based on data from December 5, 2021 to the week starting December 19, 2021.
- Approximately half of the admissions are <5 years of age and thus vaccine ineligible.
- For the most recent week (December 19, 2021) none of the 5-11 year-old patients was fully vaccinated (compared to 16.1% overall in that age group), and only one-quarter (23%) of 12-17 year-old patients (7 patients out of 30 admissions) were fully vaccinated (compared to 64% in that age group).
Suggested Interventions
- Enroll in New York State’s vaccination program at https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/covid-19-vaccine-information-providers.
- Continue to strongly recommend COVID-19 vaccination for children age 5 and up and boosters for those eligible; discuss vaccination with your patients and parents at every opportunity.
- Remind parents not to assume a mild respiratory illness is a routine “cold”; test for COVID-19. Counsel parents that although COVID-19 is usually mild in children, there are risks of serious illness and sequelae for children, and if not isolated they can contribute to community transmission.
- Continue to recommend other appropriate mitigation measures such as wearing a wellfitting mask, social distancing, and avoidance of crowds.
- Emphasize the importance of isolation and quarantine to avoid spreading COVID-19 to others. Remind families that if they use a home test and get a positive result, they need to self-isolate and inform close contacts of the exposure.
