Childhood hospitalizations

Are COVID hospitalizations on the rise among kids? Is severe disease a concern among adolescents?

To answer these questions, scientists used the Coronavirus Disease 2019-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network (COVID-NET). This is a database of COVID-19 hospitalizations in 99 counties across 14 states, which covers 10% of the U.S. population. On Friday, the CDC published the key results.

What did they find?

During January 1 to March 31, 2021…

• 376 adolescents were hospitalized and had a positive PCR test

  • 204 adolescents were hospitalized for COVID-19

  • 172 adolescents were analyzed separately because their primary reason for admission was not directly COVID-19 (like surgery or trauma)

• Among the 204 adolescents:

  • 31.4% were admitted to the ICU

  • 4.9% required ventilation

  • No deaths

  • 70.6% had one or more underlying medical conditions

    • Most common was obesity (35.8%), followed by asthma (30.9%) and neurologic disorders (14.2%)

During the entire pandemic (March 2020- April 2021), adolescent hospitalizations…

• …were as high as those aged 0-4 years old

• …were 12.5 times lower than that in adults (adolescent hospitalization rate=49.9 per 100,000 vs. adult hospitalization rate=675.6 per 100,000)

• …peaked on January 9 (weekly rate of 2.1 per 100,000)

• …rates exceeded (2.5–3.0 times higher) flu-associated hospitalization rates from previous years

Three-week moving average COVID-19–associated hospitalization rates* among children and adolescents aged <18 years, by age group — COVID-NET, 14 states,† March 1, 2020–April 24, 2021

Cumulative rates for COVID-19–associated hospitalizations* compared with influenza-associated hospitalizations† among adolescents aged 12–17 years, by surveillance week§ — COVID-NET¶ and FluSurv-NET,** 14 states,†† 2017–2021§§

What does this mean?

• Severe disease does occur among adolescents. (We knew this, but this solidified the evidence). In fact recently, 1/3 went to the ICU, which is a very high rate.

• Hospitalizations for adolescents were lower than adults. We also already knew this. But adults isn’t a good comparison because, overall, adolescents just don’t get hospitalized very often. Comparing COVID to other adolescent diseases, like the flu, is much more useful.

• Something that was interesting, to me at least, was that 0-4 year olds have the same hospitalization rates as 12-17, but 5-11 year olds have markedly lower trends.

• There’s been a recent increase in adolescent hospitalizations

Bottom Line: All of this underlines the importance of adolescent vaccinations AND the need for adolescents to correctly and consistently wear masks until they are fully protected.

Love, YLE