Hospitalisation Rates For Children With Covid Rise

At a time when the Omicron wave appears to be easing, new concerns have emerged around the impact of the variant on children.

- Samuel Lovett

Since the turn of the new year, daily child hospitalisation rates have risen to record-high levels. Although they are incomparable with admission rates for adults, almost as many children have been taken into hospital in the first nine days of 2022 (1,098) as in the entirety of the first wave (1,333).

But, as has been the case from day one, there’s more to the data than meets the eye. The children going to A&E are less sick than they have been at any stage of the pandemic, dismissing theories that Omicron is more severe in young people. The proportion of hospitalised children requiring oxygen has fallen too. Between 14 December and 12 January, only 12 per cent of under-ones were given oxygen, down from 20 per cent in the Delta wave.

The number being moved to intensive care has similarly decreased over time, while the average amount of time a child of any age spends in hospital is also down. At the beginning of the pandemic, 12- to 17-year-olds were typically hospitalised for 11.5 days. Now, it’s 2.5 days.

“I really want to emphasise the fact that these are not particularly sick infants,” said Calum Semple, a professor of child health at the University of Liverpool. Dr. Camilla Kingdon, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said those “on the shop floor” were not “picking up any signals that are overly concerning”.