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The number of hospitalized young children infected with coronavirus rose rapidly last week to the highest levels since the start of the pandemic, according to data released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While an increase was observed in children aged 4 and younger who were not eligible for the vaccine, children who applied to hospitals for non-Kovid reasons were also included in the data.

The increase can be explained in part by the increase in Omicron cases affecting entire populations and the spread of other respiratory infections.

But the data doesn’t show a similarly steep increase in coronavirus infections among hospitalized children of other ages, and federal health officials thought Omicron might not be as mild in younger children as it was in older children.

Doctors said that children infected with the variant are still much less likely to become seriously ill compared to adults, and that even young children are less likely to need ventilators than those admitted during previous fluctuations.

CDC’s director, Dr. “We have yet to see any signal of any seriousness increase in this age demographic,” Rochelle Walensky told reporters at a news conference Friday.

As of January 1, more than four out of 100,000 children aged 4 and under admitted to hospitals have been infected with coronavirus – twice the rate reported a month ago and nearly three times the rate this time last year.

By contrast, the hospitalization rate for 5 to 11-year-olds with Covid was 0.6, roughly the same as reported in previous months.

Dr. Walensky noted that only 16 percent of children ages 5 to 11 are fully vaccinated, and urged anyone eligible to receive the vaccine and boosters as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, we see that the hospitalization rates of children aged 0-4, who are not yet suitable for the Covid-19 vaccine, have increased. “It’s very important that we surround them with people who have been vaccinated to provide protection.”

The increase was noticed in a number of regional medical centers. A pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, Dr. Danielle Zerr said that hospitalizations for young children are now “flying our previous Delta wave in late summer, early fall, and it was our highest before that.”

Experts are typically cautious about interpreting the increase in pediatric hospitalizations as a sign that a variant is particularly severe in children compared to adults. There were similar fears about Delta and Beta variants, but the increase in pediatric hospitalizations turned out to be more a result of the contagion of the variants.

This time around, at least part of the increase in cases is a reflection of Omicron’s rise across all age groups. The country is currently recording an average of 600,000 cases per day, about one-fifth of which are in children.

Chair of the infectious diseases committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. “The more children it infects, the more you will have children who will be sick enough to be hospitalized,” Yvonne Maldonado said. PhD at Stanford University.

For example, at Seattle Children’s Hospital, about 21 percent of children test positive for the coronavirus, a comparatively high rate of 1 percent on average and 3 percent during the Delta wave.

Dr. “It’s just a game changer,” said Zerr of the more recent numbers.

Doctors may accept a young child more quickly than an adult with similar symptoms, and this may explain some of the increased rates in young children. But some experts said the increase this time may be too steep to be explained by the usual factors alone.

An alternative hypothesis for the increase may be that young children are particularly vulnerable to infections in the upper respiratory tract – exactly where Omicron is thought to be more concentrated compared to other variants.

A pediatrician at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, Dr. “The smaller they are, the smaller the airways,” Kristin Oliver said of younger children.

“In a disease, if it seems to affect the upper airway more, it seems logical that it would be more affected,” he added. “They’re more at risk for it — for longer, prolonged cases and hospitalizations that can come with a more serious case.”

This may explain why more hospitalized children age 4 and younger during the pandemic have tested positive for coronavirus than children age 5 and older. This is why young children are more vulnerable to other pathogens such as respiratory syncytial virus and the seal-like cough associated with croup.

For parents of young children, the numbers add another layer of concern as they wait for vaccines to be available.

Alicia Henriquez, a public school teacher in Chicago, has three children, two of them under the age of 5. Her young children – Maxi, 4 and Sofia, 2 – have contracted the coronavirus, but Maxi has no symptoms and Sofia only has a cough.

Still, Ms. Henriquez said she’s been monitoring her symptoms carefully. “You don’t know if your child will be in the hospital, so I still think you need to be careful,” she said.

The CDC’s new data was collected by Covid-Net, the agency’s hospitalization surveillance network, which includes 14 sites and covers about 10 percent of the U.S. population. According to the agency, the rates are likely to be underestimated due to the lack of testing available.

Many children who become seriously ill have other conditions or weakened immune systems. Dr. “These kids are definitely at high risk right now,” Maldonado said. “We’re seeing more now than ever before.”

A gastroenterologist in Philadelphia, Dr. Julie Binder has two daughters under 5 years old. Dr. Binder’s eldest daughter, Annie, said the 4 had an undiagnosed medical condition that resulted in “some very strange reactions” to viruses. After contracting Annie with a viral infection two years ago, she suffered months of complications.

Dr. Binder and her husband are determined to live as normal a life as possible for Annie, even during the pandemic. But they’ve kept her out of daycare for the past few weeks to protect her from the rise in post-holiday infections.

Dr. “When I heard this information, I am absolutely happy that I did,” Binder said of the data released Friday. “If he had been vaccinated, I would feel much more comfortable during this wave right now.”

A coronavirus vaccine is not yet available for children under the age of 5 in the United States, and likely won’t be for another few months. But many older children are still unvaccinated.

Less than 25 percent of children 5 to 11 years old and just over 60 percent of adolescents 12 to 17 years old have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine.

Dr. “If you’re really worried about your child getting sick, you should vaccinate your child,” Maldonado said. “It’s the easiest thing we can do right now to keep our kids healthy.”

As of October 31, about one in three children hospitalized with Covid was obese. Still, about half had no other known medical condition. Data collected by the CDC