As Vaccinations Slowly Increase and Slowly Accelerate New Cases of Children are on the rise.

Editor’s note: Find the most up-to-date COVID-19 news as well as instructions in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center.

New COVID-19 vaccinations for children were down by almost 24% in the past week, as the number of cases increased by just 3.5 percent, based on new data.

This low number indicates that the American Academy of Pediatrics and Children’s Hospital Association have not yet caught up to the reality of Omicron variant. It has resulted in new patients to the clinic across all age groups , and currently is the majority of COVID-19-related infections in the United States according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the midst of this current surge of deaths, the United States has just passed another sobering COVID milestone 1,000 children younger than 17 years older died. The number of deaths as of December. 20 was 1,015, according to the CDC with the highest proportion, nearly 32%, occurring in children less than 5 years of age.

The 3.5 percent increase in child cases increased the number to 170,000 for the week of Dec. 10-16, the fifth time in the past six weeks and the 19th week in a row with a count of over 100,000 going back to mid-August. The majority of the increase was in the Northeast, with a slight rise in the South and decreases throughout the Midwest and West as per the weekly COVID report by the AAP/CHA.

The state level saw the highest percentage increases in cases over the last 2 weeks in Maine and New Hampshire. Vermont also has the highest vaccination rates for children aged 5-11 years (51 percent) and 12-17 years old (84%) respectively according to the report on trends in vaccination.

The number of children getting COVID vaccines continues to decrease nationally. The number of children 5-17 years old who had received at least one dose increased by about 498,000 for the week of December. 13-19, a decrease from 654,000 (-23.9 percent) the previous week. The highest percentage of vaccine-related participants in recent weeks was children aged 5-11 yearsold, which was 22.7 percent. However, that number was just 42.8% just before Thanksgiving according to information from the CDC.

Positively children aged 5-11 made up 51% of all Americans who received the vaccination regimen during the two weeks that ended Dec. 20. The total number of completed vaccines is 3.6 million in that age group, in addition to more than 13.4 million children aged 12-17 and the CDC figures show that 6.1 million children aged 5-11 and 15.9 million children between 12 and 17 have had at least one dose.

However, this means that nearly half (47 percent) (12-17-year-olds) are still not fully vaccinated, and that more than three-quarters (37 percent) have not received any vaccines, as per the COVID Tracker.

This article first appeared on MDedge.com, part of the Medscape Professional Network.

Content Source: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/965411?src=rss