More kids in ICU with COVID ‘than ever’
The Ohio Department of Health and physicians on Thursday stressed the importance of mask-wearing and vaccination of Ohio children, as children’s hospitals see more serious COVID-19 cases.
“Nationally and statewide, children’s hospitals have sounded the alarm,” said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the health department. “It’s pushing our children’s hospitals to capacity.”
On Thursday, the CEO of Ohio’s six children’s hospitals penned a letter to the public stressing the urgency. They wrote that more children are in intensive care with the virus than ever before, and that it’s “threatening the capacity of our pediatric safety net in ways we have never experienced before.”
On Thursday, Ohio reported 7,087 new COVID-19 cases.
Dr. Hector Wong, an ICU physician at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, noted there has been a shift in children getting hospitalized.
“What’s a little bit different now is that something of a silver lining year ago… kids were getting infected but weren’t getting particularly sick,” said Wong. “That’s changed now.”
He said that children can get the same reactions to COVID-19 that adults do. Those under the age of 12 are not eligible for the vaccine yet.
“Biologically why that is, it’s speculation,” he said of why the situation has changed for children. “Probably something related to the delta variant.”
There’s also been an “unusual timing” of a rise in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as well, Wong and others have said.
In the Columbus area, at least 20 chil
dren were hospitalized at Nationwide Children’s Hospital earlier this week, and the facility expanded its ICU capacity in preparation.
Statewide, there have been 1,793 people ages 19 and younger hospitalized with COVID-19 during the pandemic. As of Thursday, children under age 18 accounted for 29.9% of new COVID-19 cases reported this week.
The rise in the number of cases in children and the severity of those cases comes as students go back to the classrooms. The more contagious delta variant of the novel coronavirus has affected the operations of schools across Ohio.
While the debate over mask mandates in schools rages on, there have been multiple incidents of schools having to go remote due to quarantines stemming from COVID-19 outbreaks.
During the week ending Sunday, there were 4,446 students and 873 staff diagnosed with COVID-19 statewide, according to state figures published Thursday.
The health department repeated Thursday its current quarantine guidelines for schoolchildren exposed to the virus.
If fully vaccinated, one can forgo quarantine. If a school requires masking and social distancing, one can forgo quarantine. If a school doesn’t require them, a student can stay in school if they were masked and distanced at the time of exposure.
The guidelines have led to quarantines of hundreds of students across the state in districts without mask mandates.
Licking Valley High School in Licking County went remote after COVID-19 cases forced more than 200 students into quarantine. Lebanon City Schools closed down for three days after at least 16% of students were quarantined.
Ohio health officials are exploring the possibility of letting students exposed to the coronavirus stay in school as long as they wear a mask and take two rapid tests. A pilot project involving 10 Warren County school districts is in the works, Gov. Mike Dewine said Wednesday.
Overall, trends for the virus are worsening, said Vanderhoff. Virtually every county in Ohio is seeing high transmission rates.
Currently, around 1 in 8 patients in Ohio hospitals have tested positive for the coronavirus, and 1 in 5 patients in
ICU are Covid-positive. Last week, it was around 1 in 10 and 1 in 6 patients, respectively.
Rural hospitals have it worse, with 1 in 4 patients with COVID-19 and 1 in 3 ICU patients with the virus.
The number of new COVID-19 cases has been on the rise since July. On Thursday, the state reported 7,087 new COVID-19 cases.
As of Thursday, there were 2,573 COVID-19 patients hospitalized statewide, the Ohio Hospital Association reported. That’s a 21% increase in seven days and a nearly tenfold increase since early July.
Titus Wu is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.