In New York, United States, pediatric hospitalizations quadrupled in two weeks. The Omicron variant continues to spread.
The Omicron variant continues to spread in the United States, where health officials in New York are seeing an increase in the number of children hospitalized in connection with Covid-19, while the White House on Sunday promised to quickly resolve the shortage of tests in the country.
The New York State Department of Health “is closely monitoring an increasing trend in pediatric hospitalizations associated with Covid-19,” according to a statement released Friday. “The largest increase concerns New York City with admissions which have quadrupled” between the week of December 5 and that of December 19, it said. Half of these admissions concern children under 5, so who are not yet old enough to be vaccinated.
The number of Covid-19 cases in the United States continues to increase, with nearly 190,000 new cases daily over the past seven days on average, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. The arrival of the new variant, and the end of the year celebrations, synonymous with travel and family reunion, have caused a rush on tests in the United States, where it is difficult in some places to get it.
Read also :
Covid-19: the executive mobilized against the Omicron variant before the New Year
“The tests will not be fully available to everyone before January”
Dr Anthony Fauci, senior White House adviser in the fight against the pandemic, assured that this shortage would soon be resolved. “One of the problems right now is that (the tests) won’t be fully available to everyone until January,” the epidemiologist told ABC. “But we are addressing the testing issue, and that, very soon, will be fixed,” he continued, also acknowledging his frustration with these supply issues.
President Joe Biden resolved last week to announce massive purchases of tests by the federal state: 500 million kits, which will be distributed free of charge to whoever requests them.
Read also :
Omicron variant: vaccine protection after the 3rd dose drops sharply after ten weeks
But these tests will not be delivered until January, which fuels strong criticism against the White House, whose strategy to fight Covid-19 has for weeks been mainly focused on vaccination. US executive spokeswoman Jen Psaki was questioned on December 6, days after Omicron was first detected in the United States, about the difficulty of accessing tests in the country.
She was content to ironize: “We should send a free test to all Americans, right?”. Dr Fauci also spoke on the question of the Omicron variant and its dangerousness.
Recognizing how Omicron is “extraordinarily contagious”, he however praised data from studies in South Africa and the United Kingdom which seem to indicate a lower dangerousness of the cases. “When you have such a volume of new infections, it could exceed the real reduction of the dangerousness”, he warned, however, fearing a congestion of the hospital system.
Jacques Izopet: “Few hospitalizations among children overall”
“The explosion in the number of hospitalizations of children in New York is something that we have not yet been able to objectify and that, I hope, we will not object,” explains Jacques Izopet, head of the virology department. of Toulouse University Hospital. Overall, there has been little hospitalization among children. This data must be monitored because, until now, children were spared, but it would not be surprising that the virus is now circulating in In the vast majority of cases, this part of the population does not have serious forms. We hope that this will still be the case for the Omicron virus. Simply, we know that children are more likely to be affected by Omicron because this one is more contagious. “
–
–
–
