Children Make Up 26% of New COVID-19 Cases in Colorado
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:
Children make up 26% of new COVID-19 cases in Colorado:
Children make up more than a quarter of new COVID-19 cases in Colorado, bolstered by the spread of more-contagious variants and in-person school activities.
In Colorado, children between 0 to 19 account for 26.4% of all cases reported the week of April 25, according to state data. Overall, children make up 16.57% of all infections in the state since the start of the pandemic.
Dr. Sean O'Leary, a pediatrician and professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said highly transmissible variants, the lack of vaccine for kids and loosened COVID-19 restrictions are contributing to the numbers.
"Kids under 16 right now are not eligible for vaccination so that's a group that is completely prone to getting infected at this point," O'Leary told ABC News.
The state has reported the presence of four variants with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showing that 49% of confirmed cases, regardless of age, are the B.1.1.7 variant, which first emerged in the United Kingdom.
Children in the state returned to in-person learning at the beginning of the 2020 academic year, though most with masks and social distancing.
[...] The fact that children are not eligible for the vaccine is another reason behind the spread. Currently, no authorized vaccine is available for those 16 and older.
Pfizer-BioNtech requested the Food and Drug Administration authorize its vaccine for children between 12 to 15 in late March. The FDA is projected to authorize the vaccine for that age group by next week.
And it's not just Colorado where children are increasingly getting the virus.
Children now make up 22% of recent COVID-19 cases in the nation, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association report.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.