Thankfully there are far less kids today in the hospital with COVID-19 than last winter. According to data collected through COVID-NET, pediatric hospitalizations peaked around the first week of January in 2022. There were far more kids suffering from COVID-19 in the hospital last winter than at any other time during the pandemic.
While the number of kids in the hospital right now with COVID-19 is relatively low, there is concern that hospitalizations for COVID-19 will again surge this winter. The problem may be compounded by a lot of kids needing hospital care for other illnesses. We mays suffer through a bad influenza season and we have already been seeing a lot of RSV. Pediatric hospitals could again be overwhelmed this winter with sick kids.
We can prevent most pediatric influenza and COVID-19 hospitalizations. Vaccines are readily available, extremely safe and very effective.
A number of studies have been done analyzing the degree of protection the COVID-19 vaccines provide against severe illness. I will provide a link to a summary of these studies in the supplemental information. The effectiveness of the vaccines in these analyses varied greatly. Factors such as age group, time during which the data was collected and time after last dose of vaccine appear to have effects on the degree of protection that vaccines provide against the various outcomes that were measured.
A trend can be seen from looking at these studies. The original vaccines provided very good reduction of the risks against both infection and hospitalization during prior to when the Omicron variant became dominant. Data collected after the Omicron variant became dominant shows that the protection from the original vaccines dropped significantly. This is most notable in the drop in effectiveness against just being infected with the virus. The reduction in risk for hospitalization was still fairly good against the Omicron variant but the risk reduction was much less than it had been against the Delta variant.
Updated COVID-19 boosters are now available for everyone 5 years and older. It is expected that these boosters will give us better protection against the current dominant variants of the virus. These “bivalent” vaccines have 2 components. Half of the vaccine targets the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the other half targets the variants which are predicted to continue circulating this fall and winter.
Having a vaccine targeting multiple versions of a virus is nothing new. Every year the influenza vaccine is updated to target the likely multiple versions of the virus predicted to be circulating. For example, the influenza vaccine that was injected into my arm this year was a “quadrivalent” vaccine.
COVID-19 vaccines are available at no charge to your family. The clinic or pharmacy may be able to get reimbursement for the labor of administering the vaccine from your health insurance provider, but you should not be charged anything for getting your child protected.
Go to vaccines.gov to find a location to get vaccinated.
All statements in this article should be attributed to myself, not any organization I represent or my employer. This article presents a medical perspective - not a statement intended to be for or against any public policy or politician.
Russ Coash, PA-C
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