An American study carried out by the CDC – the main federal public health agency in the United States – suggests Covid-19 Delta variant does not cause more severe cases in children and adolescents. A rather reassuring statement while school start and its epidemic potential are worrying.
This study involved data from about 10% of people hospitalized from early March to mid-June and from mid-June to late July, when the Delta grew dominant in the United States. Although the hospitalization toll in children and adolescents from 0 to 17 years old has multiplied by five since the outbreak of the new variant, “proportions of hospitalized children and adolescents with severe disease were similar before and during the period of Delta predominance”. As a matter of fact, the number of children with severe disease remained low and mortality slender.
Data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show vaccines still protect adolescents against the Delta. Furthermore, another study considers adults vaccination enables to prevent children from being contaminated. CDC director Rochelle Walensky says “more children have COVID-19 because there is more disease in the community”, as well as “community-level vaccination coverage protects our children”, and “there was not increased disease severity in children”.
