The day before he was due to start fourth grade, Francisco Rosales was admitted to a Dallas hospital with COVID-19.
It shouldn’t be like that, thought his frightened mother, Yessica Gonzalez. Francisco was usually sane and impetuous. At 9 he was too young to be vaccinated, but most of the family had their vaccinations. She had heard that children rarely got the coronavirus.
But with the highly contagious Delta variant spreading in the US, record numbers of children are filling intensive care beds in hospitals instead of classrooms, even more than at the height of the pandemic. Many are too young to get the vaccine, which is only available from the age of 12.
The burgeoning virus is spreading anxiety and causing turmoil and squabbles among parents, administrators, and politicians in the United States, particularly in states like Florida and Texas, where Republican governors have prevented schools from forcing teenagers to wear masks.
With millions of children returning to the classroom this month, experts say there is undoubtedly a lot at stake.
Very high infection rates in the community “are really making our children’s hospitals feel the pressure,” said Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University who supports research on Moderna’s vaccine for children under 12 is likely to be unavailable for several months.
“I’m really worried,” said Dr. Sonja Rasmussen, pediatrician and public health expert at the University of Florida. “It’s just so disappointing that these numbers are rising again.”
While hospitalization rates of COVID-19 in children are lower than adults, they have risen in recent weeks, reaching 0.41 per 100,000 children ages 0-17, compared to 0.31 per 100,000, the previous high by mid-January, according to an Aug. 13 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, describes the rise in cases in children as “very worrying”.
He noted that over 400 U.S. children have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. “And right now we have nearly 2,000 children in the hospital, many of them in intensive care, some of them under the age of 4,” Collins told Fox News on Sunday.
Health experts believe that adults who haven’t had their injections contribute to the increase in adults and children alike. It was particularly bad in places with lower vaccination rates, such as parts of the south.
It is clear that the Delta variant is significantly more contagious than the original version, but scientists cannot yet say with certainty whether it makes people more ill or whether adolescents are particularly susceptible to it.
As experts work to answer these questions, many hospitals are wavering. Those in Texas are among the hardest hit. On Tuesday, they reported that 196 children with confirmed COVID-19 had been treated. Compared to 163 during the previous high in December.
At Houston Children’s Hospital, the largest children’s hospital in the country, the number of adolescents being treated for COVID-19 is at an all-time high, said Dr. Jim Versalovic, interim pediatrician. In the past few weeks, the vast majority had Delta infections and most patients 12 years and older had not had injections, he said.
“It’s spreading like wildfire in our communities,” he said.
This month, at one point, his hospital system has diagnosed 200 children with COVID-19 per day, about 6% of whom are in need of hospital treatment. On some days, the number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 has exceeded 45.
Versalovic said he suspects children’s hospital admissions have increased just because so many become infected, not because the Delta variant is making people more ill.
At Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, where Francisco is being treated, the number of patients with COVID-19 increased from 10 in the week of July 4 to 29 in the week of August 8.
Francisco is doing better and is expected to recover, but his mother is concerned and is considering homeschooling him. The virus “is really dangerous,” she said.
The delta surge is another test of schools in the country facing students who have fallen academically behind due to distance learning or who have developed mental health problems due to the upheaval.
Outbreaks have already occurred in reopened schools in the south and there is resistance to the wearing of masks.
In Texas, some school administrators demand masks despite the state governor and the state Supreme Court. Among them is Michael Hinojosa of the Dallas school system, one of the largest counties in the state.
“This Delta variant is different and the numbers are really big in the county,” he said. “We will continue our mask mandate to protect the safety of students, parents, families and most importantly our teachers who are on this front.”
Although dozens of students and staff have contracted the virus since the Dallas county’s 180 schools reopened on Aug. 5, the numbers are far lower than when they resumed face-to-face learning earlier this year, Hinojosa said.
Aware of the toll the pandemic has taken on children, Hinojosa is determined to keep its schools open.
“We know they were drawn from it,” he said. “That’s why they have to be with their friends and teachers again.”
Schools in DeSoto, a suburb of Dallas, also require masks, and Superintendent D’Andre Weaver said there may have been no resistance from parents, he added, because many are black and know their community is getting hard from the pandemic was hit. Some considered keeping their children at home because the governor opposed masking requirements at school, Weaver said.
As a parent and administrator, Weaver said that the delta rise is “a big problem, it’s a big frustration. It’s a great fear. “
His own two girls started first and second grades this week, and the first thing he asks when he picks them up after school is, “How are you feeling? Do you have a sore throat? “Said Weber.” I know that many parents are in the same boat. “
Although he knows that many children have suffered from virtual learning over the past year, Weaver said, “We have no choice but to prepare this as an option.”
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Follow AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner at @LindseyTanner.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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