Eighteen months into the covid-19 pandemic, with the delta variant fueling a massive resurgence of disease, many hospitals are hitting a heartbreaking new low. They’re now losing babies to the coronavirus.
The first reported covid-related death of a newborn occurred in Orange County, Florida, and an infant has died in Mississippi. Merced County in California lost a child under a year old in late August.
“It’s so hard to see kids suffer,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an expert on infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which — like other pediatric hospitals around the country — has been inundated with covid patients.
Until the delta variant laid siege this summer, nearly all children seemed to be spared from the worst ravages of covid, for reasons scientists didn’t totally understand.
Although there’s no evidence the delta variant causes more severe disease, the virus is so infectious that children are being hospitalized in large numbers — mostly in states with low vaccination rates. Nearly 30% of covid infections reported for the week that ended Sept. 9 were in children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Doctors diagnosed more than 243,000 cases in children in the same week, bringing the total number of covid infections in kids under 18 since the onset of the pandemic to 5.3 million, with at least 534 deaths.
