Pediatricians seeing more children with COVID-19 than ever before

As cases of COVID-19 surge yet again across the country, one of the harder-hit demographics with this wave has been pediatric cases.

Just last week, school-age children made up 21.4% of reported positive cases in the U.S., with 981,488 pediatric cases of COVID-19 seen during the week of Jan. 6-13.

The state of Alabama reports that 5.7% of all cases seen in the last month have been in those aged 5-11. Additionally, 3.5% of cases during this time were in ages 0-4, with 6.6% of cases seen in ages 12-17.

The state also reported an all-time high of children hospitalized with COVID-19. As of Jan. 13, the state was reporting 71 pediatric hospital admissions because of COVID.

“Children, under the age of 18, make up 22.2% of the US population,” said the American Academy of Pediatrics.

In total, children make up 17.8% of all COVID-19 cases in the US since March 2020, with a total of 9,452,491 total child COVID-19 cases reported.

Dr. David Kimberlin, co-director of UAB and Children’s of Alabama’s Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, said during a briefing on Jan. 13 that Children’s has seen “a threefold increase in the number of kids hospitalized with COVID.”

This surge has been echoed locally, as all three public school systems reported an increase in cases, with a combined total of 482, mostly being students.

Dr. Ben Hester of Etowah Pediatrics in Rainbow City said the virus has been more prevalent in school-age children, especially now with the Omicron variant being more contagious than its predecessors.

“There’s been a tremendous surge of COVID infection in kids. It’s been there and we’ve been looking for it and finding some cases, but in the last six weeks, it’s been the most of what we’ve seen,” he said.

Wayne Rowe, president and CEO of Quality of Life Health Services, noted they also have seen an increase of pediatric cases in COVID-19, but they have been “handled well” by staff.

“We’ve had a few cases at our company, and we’re doing very well as far as testing our patients,” he said, “So, everything has been doing pretty good, just very busy.”

Hester added that there has been an increased rate of mothers testing positive for COVID-19 and giving birth to newborn babies, which in turn exposes them to the coronavirus as well.

“Thankfully, those newborns have been doing fine so far,” he said, “But overall, it’s been newborns all the way up to 18 that we’ve been seeing get sick with the virus.”

Hester said the severity of cases his office has seen has been “mixed,” but most have been relatively mild.

“It’s been generally the asthmatic children who have been having the most trouble with it,” he said. “They’ve been manageable and there have been less than 10 of our patients that have been hospitalized.”

Rowe echoed that, saying, “Most of our cases have been mild cases so far.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics added, “Among states reporting, children ranged from 1.7% to 4.4% of their total accumulated hospitalizations, and 0.1% to 1.5% of all their child COVID-19 cases resulted in hospitalization.”

Hester said that some of the things parents can do to help keep their kids healthy include continuing a good hygiene regiment and keep them active.

“It still goes back down to frequent hand washing and keeping kids healthy by staying physically healthy and getting exercise and eating right,” he said.

Kids Health also recommends that children over the age of 2 wear face masks when in public to keep them from catching the virus.

“Babies and toddlers under the age of 2 shouldn’t wear a mask because they have smaller airways, so breathing through a mask is harder for them,” they said. “They will likely try to remove the mask, causing them to touch their face a lot. This can increase their risk of catching and spreading the virus.”

Rowe said, “The key thing as far as prevention in children is certainly the masks. The other thing would be that any signs or symptoms children (show), that they get checked."

He said Quality of Life recently received their first shipment of free COVID-19 testing kits for their patients and the community.

"We only have about 1,350, but we do expect to get more shipments in soon," he said.

Hester and Rowe also recommend that children of eligible age get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as they are able to.

“There have been some times where I have questioned the safety profiles of it,” Hester said. “But as science brings forth newer information, I have to try and be open to new data and studies. As of right now, the data overwhelmingly supports vaccinating children and that it’s safe and effective.”

Currently, 6.08% of those vaccinated in Etowah County are ages 5-11; 28.06% of those vaccinated are ages 12-17.

Statewide, Alabama reportedly ranked second to last in the nation for children’s vaccines as of December, at a reported 1% of children in the state having been fully vaccinated.

Of the 421,103 children reported in the state, only 4,139 had been fully vaccinated; 25,717 had at least one dose of the vaccine.

“Right now, children 5 through 11 in Alabama, 9 out of 10 of them are not vaccinated,” Kimberlin said. “That needs to change if we’re going to try to get to the other side of this.”

However, Hester recommends that, for the time being, parents look elsewhere for a vaccine provider for their children — that if they are waiting on their local pediatrician, they may be waiting a little while longer.

“We are working with the health department to get it, especially since the recommendation is 5 years or older,” he said. “It’s been challenging because we’re limited to just one maker of the vaccine, Pfizer. Because of that, there’s been difficulty with the state getting it to all of the pediatricians’ offices.”

Rowe said Quality of Life is administering the vaccine and following CDC guidelines regarding who is eligible for it. He said they are working to get COVID-19 vaccination clinics up and running in schools to help get children their vaccines.

"We cover 18 counties across the northeast part of the state, and so we're going to be reaching out to superintendents and principals at our schools to set up these vaccination clinics or sessions if we can," he said.

Overall, Hester said, children “should not be afraid,” of catching COVID-19, and parents should “be careful” when discussing the virus around their children and have that conversation if necessary.

“Sometimes I see kids have a lot of fear about getting COVID and getting infected. That’s natural, because so many of us have seen older folks get very sick and die over the past couple of years,” he added. “It would be really helpful if parents would talk to their kids and let them know that kids don’t get as sick with COVID as older adults do, and they overwhelmingly recover without complications.”

Other local pediatric practices either declined to comment or didn’t return requests for comment.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Pediatricians seeing more children with COVID-19