A public health surveillance report looked at COVID-19 hospitalization rates among children and adolescents in 14 U.S. states. The data came from the COVID-NET system, which tracks hospitalizations for laboratory-confirmed COVID-19. The report found that these hospitalization rates increased during the time when the Omicron variant was circulating. The increase was noted to be especially high among the youngest children who were not yet eligible for vaccination at the time.
This was not a controlled experiment. It is an observational report from a public health surveillance system. The report did not provide specific numbers on how large the increase was or how many children were hospitalized in total. The findings are also limited to the 14 states included in the network and may not represent the entire country.
No information was provided about how sick the children were, how long they stayed in the hospital, or if there were any safety concerns from their hospital stays. The main reason to be careful with this information is that it shows a concerning pattern or association, but it does not prove that Omicron or being unvaccinated directly caused more hospitalizations. Other factors could have played a role.
Readers should take from this that public health officials were monitoring hospitalization trends in children. The report highlights a period where more children with COVID-19 were being admitted to hospitals, which is important for families and doctors to know. It is a snapshot of data from one system, reminding us that COVID-19 can still lead to serious illness in young people.