![]() But the recent rash of illnesses among the nation’s youngest is a sobering reminder of the COVID-19 adage that lower risk is not no risk. Kids remain, as they have been throughout the pandemic, at much lower risk of getting seriously sick with the coronavirus, especially compared with unvaccinated adults. In several states, health workers say that kids-many of them previously completely healthy-are coming in sicker and deteriorating faster than ever before, with no obvious end in sight. In the South, where communities have struggled to get shots into arms and enthusiasm for masks has been spotty, intensive-care units in children’s hospitals are filling to capacity. The most serious pediatric cases are among the pandemic’s worst to date. Last week, that same statistic climbed to nearly 94,000. “It’s the biggest jump in the pandemic so far” among children, Lee Beers, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told me. ![]() In the last week of July, nearly 72,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in kids- almost a fifth of all total known infections in the U.S., and a rough doubling of the previous week’s stats. ![]() Across the country, pediatric cases of COVID-19 are skyrocketing alongside cases among unimmunized adults child hospitalizations have now reached an all-time pandemic high. But as the hypertransmissible Delta variant hammers the United States, the greatest hardships are being taken on by the unvaccinated, a population that includes some 50 million children younger than age 12. The COVID-19 vaccines have done an extraordinary job of stamping out disease and death. The family’s predicament is a microcosm of the dangerous and uncertain moment so many Americans face as the pandemic once again changes course. The eldest son, an ardent soccer player about to start sixth grade, had a spate of chest pain and now needs cardiac clearance before he’s able to take the field again. “So we have to keep our children on separate floors of our house.” The 7-year-old is missing the first few days of second grade to quarantine. Even so, the entire ordeal has been rough on their household, which is now split-quite literally-into isolation zones. Both boys, ages 5 and 11, had just a smattering of cold-like symptoms, the cardiologist said. The infected group included two of the cardiologist’s three sons. None of the other adults caught the coronavirus on the trip, the cardiologist told me, which she points to as “total proof that the vaccine worked.” ( The Atlantic agreed not to name the cardiologist to protect her family’s privacy.) But within a week, six of the eight kids on the trip-all of them too young to be eligible for vaccines-had newly diagnosed coronavirus infections as well. A test soon confirmed a mild breakthrough case of COVID-19. Then, on the last night of the outing-July 27, the same day the CDC pivoted back to asking vaccinated people to mask up indoors-one parent started feeling sick. The group spent most of the trip outdoors, biking, swimming, and hiking. It was, in many ways, a fairly pandemic-sanctioned vacation: All nine adults in attendance were fully vaccinated. Two and a half weeks ago, as the next school year approached, a pediatric cardiologist from Louisiana headed into the Georgia mountains with her husband, their three young children, and their extended family.
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