Coronavirus in the United States - news and thoughts

Apparently, Alabama can’t test for variants, and there is concern that the U.K. variant is spreading silently there.
'Super COVID' could already be spreading in Alabama

 

Nothing can compare to that. This thread has taken a year to do what that thread did in 6 weeks. I mean that one was about important stuff!

 

...Besides @duchen, That thread was never closed and reopened. This one was. That makes any claim void.

 

So is this thread now longer than the Chip Kelly thread?

 

Still blaming spring break LOL.

 

Our institution reduced spring break to only two days. It sucked from a "I need a break" perspective, but discouraged kids from traveling very far.

 

The world would not have any problems if everyone would read that thread. We solved them all there. It Certainly should be required reading for Dermatology students.

 

Back to the topic. Here are the statistics on COVID in children in the US from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Children make up nearly 21% of new COVID-19 cases

Children are making up a growing share of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S., accounting for nearly 21% last week.

About 88,500 new pediatric COVID-19 cases were reported between April 8-15, according to the latest weekly report from the AAP and Children’s Hospital Association. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 3.63 million children have tested positive, making up about 13.6% of all cases.

At least 297 children have died of COVID-19, about 0.06% of all deaths. About 0.01% of children diagnosed with COVID-19 have died. At least 14,849 children have been hospitalized, about 2% of all hospitalizations. Roughly 0.8% of children with COVID-19 have been hospitalized.

COVID-19 and Your Health

While fewer children have been sick with COVID-19 compared to adults, children can be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, can get sick from COVID-19, and can spread the virus that causes COVID-19 to others. Children, like adults, who have COVID-19 but have no symptoms (“asymptomatic”) can still spread the virus to others.

Most children with COVID-19 have mild symptoms or have no symptoms at all. However, some children can get severely ill from COVID-19. They might require hospitalization, intensive care, or a ventilator to help them breathe. In rare cases, they might die.

CDC and partners are investigating a rare but serious medical condition associated with COVID-19 in children called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). We do not yet know what causes MIS-C and who is at increased risk for developing it. Learn more about MIS-C.

 

More on Children

Pediatricians Concerned About Rise In COVID-19 Among Children

New and more infectious variants, such as the U.K. strain B.1.1.7, combined with fewer pandemic restrictions has led to new outbreaks among children. In the past few weeks, Wisconsin has seen more cases in individuals under 18 years old than any other age group.

While most children don’t get severely ill, more are requiring serious medical care.

Research released recently by the Journal of the American Medical Association shows 11 percent of young patients had to be hospitalized and nearly one-third of those needed intensive care.

Characteristics and Disease Severity of US Children and Adolescents Diagnosed With COVID-19

In 2020, more than 2, 000, 000 pediatric COVID-19 cases were reported in the United States.1 Although approximately half of pediatric patients with COVID-19 experience mild disease, some children require admission to intensive care units or use of invasive mechanical ventilation.2 We conducted a cohort study to estimate adjusted associations between demographic and clinical characteristics and severe COVID-19 among hospitalized pediatric patients.

Severe COVID-19 was defined as care requiring treatment in an intensive care unit or step-down unit, involving use of invasive mechanical ventilation, or resulting in death. We used the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Chronic Condition Indicator tool4 to identify chronic conditions using ICD-10-CM diagnoses from January 1, 2019, up to and including the child’s initial COVID-19 encounter. Race/ethnicity was defined by information in patient medical records in the PHD-SR.

Among the cohort of 2430 pediatric patients (11.7%) who were hospitalized with COVID-19, 756 (31.1%) experienced severe COVID-19. An increased association of severe COVID-19 was observed among patients with 1 or more chronic conditions vs those with none (AOR, 3.27; 95% CI, 2.44-4.37); in children aged 2 through 5 years or 6 through 11 years vs those aged 12 through 18 years (AORs, 1.53; 95% CI, 1.11-2.13 and 1.53; 95% CI, 1.04-2.23, respectively); and in male vs female patients (AOR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.26-1.83) (Figure). There was no statistically significant association between race/ethnicity or insurance type and severe COVID-19.

Although most children with COVID-19 experience mild illness, some children develop serious illness that leads to hospitalization, use of invasive mechanical ventilation, and death. Understanding factors associated with severe COVID-19 disease among children could help inform prevention and control strategies. Reducing infection risk through community mitigation strategies is critical for protecting children from COVID-19 and preventing poor outcomes.

 

An awful lot of what is published on media sites and is on the news about children and COVID is bogus anyway. The rate of infection has been reported as much lower in children because we have not been testing children. I think everyone agrees that often times the severity of any illness is very mild, consequently, we really are not testing children and definitely not characterizing assymptomatic spread to the extent we are studying it in adults. Frankly, we do not have a clue how many children have been infected, how easily it spreads, etc.....

 

Also, this data on really how effective our vaccines have been in the United States is honestly amazing:

Covid-19: Treatments, Cures, and Vaccines | Page 52 | Swamp Gas Forums

 

This was from the APA and JAMA. Credible and reliable sources. What we don’t know is how many kids has sniffles that was undiagnosed COVID. The rate of severity is low, but for those parents whose kids have severe disease, that is little comfort. The rate of increase in proportion to older people can partly be explained by vaccinations.

 

And this is the data on the Flu and Covid in kids. We can stop with the fear that Covid is a serious risk to kids.

 

Image did not load.

 

That work?

 

The sources are credible, not a question in my mind. However, those same sources will tell you that compared to adults, the US has do very, very little testing on children, which is why most experts think that we are seeing such dramatic increases in the rate of infection of children.....because we are finally testing them. Prior to about December, we used the Trump-Technique on Children......"infection rate goes way down if you do not test anyone".

From American Academy of Pediatric's own webiste (as of April 15, 2021):

For reference, children 18 and under make up 24% of the total number of people in the United States.

https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2...hildren-and-covid-19-state-level-data-report/

 

Disagree that kids weren’t tested as a matter of policy. More likely they were not sick enough to be taken for testing.

 

Some new data on longer term effects of infection, showing some risks at least out to 6 months.

US coronavirus: New study shows why vaccinating everybody is essential - CNN