Record number of Alabama children hospitalized with COVID-19

Montgomery Advertiser - 1/12/2022

At least 60 children were hospitalized in Alabama with COVID-19 on Tuesday, according to reports from the state's Department of Public Health. That number breaks the state's record for most pediatric COVID hospitalizations since the start of the pandemic.

Moreover, 13 of those hospitalized children were being treated in intensive care units.

"The Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH) is extremely concerned about the impact of this most recent surge of COVID-19 on the pediatric population," ADPH area health officer Dr. Karen Landers said in a statement to the Advertiser.

Because the omicron variant is more transmissible than previous COVID variants, she said more children are coming into contact with the virus and have more opportunities to contract it.

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"In addition, relatively small numbers of children are vaccinated against COVID-19 in Alabama. Vaccinated persons are less likely to have severe disease, be hospitalized, and die from COVID-19," Landers said.

Early data from the United Kingdom suggests that while the omicron variant is more contagious, it is less likely than other variants to result in hospitalization. Still, as total case numbers rise, so have hospitalizations across all ages.

The state's COVID positivity rate is up to 41.1%, meaning out of every 10 people who get tested for COVID right now, around 4 of them are positive

As of Tuesday, 1,925 people were hospitalized with COVID, including 388 in the ICU and 35 pregnant.

These numbers are up from Jan. 4 when the state hit its highest daily case record ever of over 8,000 cases. Since then, the record has been broken several more times. The highest daily case number now stands at 12,972 from Jan. 7.

The ADPH and the CDC continue to recommend that eligible people ages five and up remain up to date with their COVID vaccines.

Hadley Hitson covers the rural South for the Montgomery Advertiser and Report for America. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com.