As Hospitalizations of Children Grow Amid Delta Surge, Florida Leading U.S. in Admissions

Hospitals across the country are seeing record-breaking numbers of admissions, and the alarming new data shown in the rising rates of Delta variant spread is how it is affecting children.

Florida is currently leading the nation in pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19. Recent data shows the number of pediatric cases confirmed in hospitals in Florida at 143, with Texas a close second at 140.

The Miami Herald reported on Tuesday that 46 children were admitted to Florida hospitals with confirmed cases, and 22 admitted with suspected cases, according to healthdata.gov.

By July 29, the Herald reported the seven-day average of new cases in children in Florida to be at 1,544—at least seven times greater than the same average the month prior.

The data is particularly concerning as parents and children everywhere begin to prepare for the school year, when some experts suspect that outbreaks and surges in cases will run rampant.

"Until we get vaccination up to a sufficiently high rate, if you want to prevent COVID transmission in your community, if you want to prevent COVID transmission at your schools, then it's masking until we have sufficiently high vaccination," Danny Benjamin and Kanecia Zimmerman, Duke University School of Medicine professors and co-chairs of the ABC Science Collaborative, said in a virtual press conference on Wednesday.

Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, chief of the division of infectious diseases in the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford Medicine, told CNN that the surge in pediatric cases of COVID-19 nationwide is high.

"Considering the fact that we are vaccinated now, what that's telling us is that unvaccinated people are getting infected in higher numbers because the virus is more infectious with the Delta variant," Maldonado said.

Doctors and public health experts are attributing the rise of pediatric hospitalizations to the Delta variant, a more contagious form of the COVID-19 virus that now is accounting for nearly 94 percent of all cases in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as low vaccination rates among children under 20.

As children under 12 are not eligible for vaccination, Mary Jo Trepka, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at Florida International University, told the Herald that the spike in hospitalizations over the last week could have been preventable if children were able to get vaccinated.

"It's very unfortunate," she said. "These kids didn't even get to make the decisions that are impacting their health."

She urged parents to get their children who are 12 and older vaccinated.

Last week, Florida accounted for nearly one out of every four new infections and hospitalizations in the nation, according to the CDC.

Newsweek reached out to HealthData.gov for additional information.