SEATTLE — Seattle Children’s says it’s seeing a sharp spike in the past week of positive COVID-19 cases in kids, as well as a bump up in hospitalizations.
The hospital says kids getting admitted for COVID-19 reached a peak of about 20 at Seattle Children’s in August. Since then, it’s been steadily declining and dropped down to just two or three kids a week ago.
But since the omicron variant hit, the number of hospitalized kids has doubled. Seattle Children’s says there are currently about seven or eight kids hospitalized for COVID-19. The good news is, this variant of the virus appears to be sending fewer kids to the ICU.
“It does appear in kids vaccination is protective against severe illness. And although it’s really early, we haven’t seen any ICU hospitalizations in this past week,” said Dr. John McGuire, the hospital’s chief of the Division of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine.
In New York City, where omicron’s surge is even more severe, child hospitalizations there have gone up 400 percent.
McGuire says Seattle Children’s may see the uptick continue locally too.
“I expect if this wave continues to rise in the next several weeks, we probably will see more kids require hospitalization,” McGuire said. “It’s interesting we’re seeing omicron coming into our region during a time when kids are not in school. So we’ll see what happens in a week or two,” he said.
KIRO 7 also asked if parents should get their kids tested before they return to school after winter break.
Dr. McGuire said if kids have not been exposed to COVID-19 and show no symptoms, they should not need testing.
Seattle Children’s says their biggest recommendation is to get kids vaccinated.
“Almost all the kids who’ve been hospitalized were unvaccinated,” McGuire said.
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