CLEVELAND — The number of new coronavirus cases in children has reached another record high.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, there were nearly 154,000 new cases of COVID-19 last week in kids.
It was the highest weekly increase since the pandemic began.
Dr. Amy Edwards, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at University Hospitals, says she has seen an increase in the rate of positivity in her hospital and warns that things are about to get complicated.
“As our rates of kids with Covid have gone up, so must we eventually start to see the more severe cases,” Dr. Edwards said. “It’s statistics, basically.”
Already more than 1.3 million children have tested positive for the virus and kids now make up about 12% of all cases.
On Friday, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended mask wearing during most youth sports instead of just on the sidelines, as the wait for a children’s vaccine continues.
Pfizer is currently the only company testing a vaccine in children 12 and up.
Johnson and Jonson and Oxford Astra Zeneca have not even begun their trials in children.
Moderna hopes to begin testing on 11 to 17-year-olds soon, and on younger children early next year.
Dr. Edwards says kids’ trials always follow adult trials and that teen trials should be done by summer.
“I would imagine young kids would come maybe towards the end of summer,” she said. “I think those trials will probably be done by summer.”
She believes a vaccine for all kids could be available as soon as the start of the 2021 school year, and on Friday, an advisor to the CDC agreed.
The good news is the vaccine may be similar for adults and children. A big question is dosage, and no doubt, the research will be rigorous.
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