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 The Delta variant, which is rapidly spreading among mostly the
unvaccinated portion of the U.S. population, has caused
hospitalizations to spike in recent weeks, driving up the number of
pediatric hospitalizations to 1,902 on Saturday, according to data
from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Children currently make up about 2.4% of the nation's COVID-19
hospitalizations. Kids under 12 are not eligible to receive the
vaccine, leaving them more vulnerable to infection from the new,
highly transmissible variant.
"This is not last year's COVID. This one is worse and our children
are the ones that are going to be affected by it the most," Sally
Goza, former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told
CNN on Saturday.
The numbers of newly hospitalized COVID-19 patients aged 18-29,
30-39 and 40-49 also hit record highs this week, according to data
from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The spike in new cases has ramped up tension between conservative
state leaders and local districts over whether school children
should be required to wear masks as they head back to the classroom
this month.
School districts in Florida, Texas and Arizona have mandated that
masks be worn in schools, defying orders from their Republican state
governors that ban districts from imposing such rules. The
administration of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has threatened to
withhold funding from districts that impose mask requirements, and
Texas Governor Greg Abbott is appealing to the state Supreme Court
to overturn Dallas County's mask mandate, the Dallas Morning News
reported on Friday.
A fifth of the nation's COVID-19 hospitalizations are in Florida,
where the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients hit a record
16,100 on Saturday, according to a Reuters tally. More than 90% of
the state's intensive care beds are filled, according to data from
the Department of Health and Human Services.
INCREASED HOSPITALIZATIONS
The nation's largest teachers union, the National Education
Association, came out in support of mandatory vaccination for its
members this week. NEA President Becky Pringle said on Saturday that
schools should employ every mitigation strategy, from vaccines to
masks, to ensure that students can come back to their classrooms
safely this school year.
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 "Our students under 12 can't
get vaccinated. It's our responsibility to keep
them safe. Keeping them safe means that everyone
who can be vaccinated should be vaccinated,"
Pringle told CNN.
The U.S. now has an average of about 129,000 new
COVID-19 cases per day, a rate that has doubled
in a little over two weeks, according to a
Reuters tally. The number of hospitalized
COVID-19 patients is at a six-month high, and an
average of 600 people are dying each day of
COVID-19, double the death rate seen in late
July.
Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and
Oregon have reported record numbers of COVID-19
hospitalizations this month, according to a
Reuters tally, pushing healthcare systems to
operate beyond their capacity.
"Our hospitals are working to maximize their
available staff and beds, including the use of
conference rooms and cafeterias,” Florida
Hospital Association President Mary Mayhew said
in a statement on Friday.
In Oregon, Governor Kate Brown said on Friday
that she was sending 500 National Guard members
to assist overwhelmed hospitals, with 1,500
members in total available to help.
In Jackson, Mississippi, federal medical workers
are assisting understaffed local teams at a
20-bed triage center in the parking garage of
the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC)
to accommodate the overflow of COVID-19
patients.
Fifteen children and 99 adults were hospitalized
with COVID-19 at UMMC as of Saturday morning,
the hospital said. More than 77% of those
patients were unvaccinated.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter and Lisa
Shumaker; editing by Diane Craft and Aurora
Ellis)
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