More kids in CT hospitals with COVID, officials say

Connecticut hospitals are treating an increasing number of children for COVID-19, officials said in recent days, as the latest variant continues to press infection rates to heights unseen previously in the pandemic.

The number of pediatric patients at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford has risen ten-fold over the last month, from just one patient on Dec. 10 to 11 children on Monday, according to the hospital.

Yale New Haven Health, the state’s largest hospital system with in-patient pediatric beds, reported last week that it was treating more children — 19 — than at any other point during the pandemic.

On Monday, there were two pediatric patients at Stamford Hospital, where Gov. Ned Lamont held a press conference on the state’s testing efforts and steadily rising positivity rates.

Kathleen Silard, CEO of Stamford Health, said Monday that the hospital has generally seen a heightened number of pediatric patients since children began returning to school, youth sports and other indoor activities.

“I think over the summer kids were playing outside, but when you put kids together in a congregate setting and the virus is present in the household or between children, we are definitely seeing a little bit more,” Silard said. “We haven’t seen super sick kids, but we have had some hospitalizations with upper-respiratory conditions, particularly those that might be a little compromised because they have asthma or some underlying condition.”

Connecticut’s COVID hospitalizations overall on Monday reached 1,452 patients — the most since there were 1,500 on May 4, 2020.

The rise in pediatric patients comes as students across Connecticut returned to classrooms on Monday following the holiday break, and as school districts adapt to new state recommendations for shorter quarantine periods.

The latest state school data, released Thursday, showed there were 1,021 students and 293 staff members infected with the virus. However, children were on holiday break for a portion of the reporting period.

Ahead of the holiday break, the state reported on Dec. 22 there were 3,634 COVID-19 cases among students in the previous week.

There have been five reported deaths among youths aged 19 and younger from the virus, according to the state Department of Public Health. That number has not changed since August.

Fran Rabinowitz, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, said staff shortages, particularly of bus drivers, were the primary reason for the limited number of school closures on Monday.

Still, Rabinowitz said, most districts were able to adapt and open for in-person learning Monday, despite some challenges. In New Haven, for example, she said more than 400 staff and 50 bus drivers were out on Monday, but the district was able to open by using bus drivers from Fairfield, which had a scheduled day off.

“The majority, the far majority of districts, are back in and are managing despite staff shortages,” Rabinowitz said. “They’re re-deploying staff, they’re using their central office people to cover classrooms, they’re doing whatever they have to do to attempt to have children in-person, in their classrooms in as normal a situation as possible.”

Gov. Ned Lamont continued to express confidence in his statewide approach on Monday, saying he believed the pandemic was in its “final stages” despite surging cases, and rejected calls to reinstate a mask mandate or return to remote learning.

The governor also highlighted his administration’s efforts to distribute hundreds of thousands of N95 masks and at-home tests this month, despite early missteps in the acquisition of the kits .

The execution of the return-to-school strategy, however, was panned on Monday by a coalition representing more than 60,000 public school employees, including teachers and other school staff who called for more stringent health and safety standards.

Kate Dias, president of the Connecticut Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said the first day back was pockmarked by student and teacher absences, and lacking access to N95 masks and COVID-testing.

“That wasn’t the agreement,” she said. “That doesn’t feel safe, it doesn’t feel cared for, it doesn’t feel responsible.”

The coalition of unions previously released a list of protocols they urged the state to adopt as students returned from the holiday break. Those included increased COVID-19 testing and outdoor temperature checks, N95 masks provided and required by the schools, bans on combined classes due to shortages, and simultaneously remote and inperson instruction, among others.

Dias and others in the coalition also stood behind new school quarantine guidelines, which allows students who test positive to quarantine at home for as little as five days. The teachers union president said some elements of the protocols still need to be worked out, but the fewer days students need to spend out of classrooms the better, so long as students and staff play their parts.

“This has got to be a community approach,” Dias said. “We need sick people to stay home, and when they come to school, we need somebody to come pick them up and take them home. And that goes for adults as well, we have a responsibility to not come when we’re sick and recognize we’re part of this solution as well.”

The coalition also suggested the new protocols would allow school staff to focus more on symptom tracking than contact tracing.

“Our school nurses were working very hard in ways that did not have an enormous impact,” said Mary Yordon, president of the Norwalk Federation of Teachers and vice president for PreK-12 at AFT-Connecticut, another state teachers union. “We all believe there are better ways for them to use their time.”

Norwalk is one of the state’s school districts that has said it does not plan to follow the new guidelines. In a memo on Monday, DPH said the new protocols are intended to be suggested guidance and not mandates.

The state’s superintendents will speak by phone Tuesday morning with officials from the Department of Public Health regarding the new quarantine guidelines, which are based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I’m sure we’ll hear more of the particulars then,” Rabinowitz said. “But I do think most districts will probably follow the CDC guidelines. We’re not health experts, so we follow the expertise of the department of health, that tells us what the best practice is.”