Unvaccinated children among those driving COVID surge in Louisiana hospitals

Judy Woodruff:

The Omicron variant now accounts for 95 percent of COVID cases in the U.S. Public health officials say its effects are milder than the Delta variant.

But Omicron's high transmissibility is still sending — excuse me — large numbers of people to the hospital.

William Brangham has an update from one particularly hard-hit state:, Louisiana.

William Brangham:

Thanks, Judy.

Yes, the Omicron surge has just exploded across Louisiana. Take a look at this graph. In the middle of December, 196 people were hospitalized with COVID in the state. Now over 1,200 people are. That is a sixfold increase in just three weeks.

While this is still well below the number of people hospitalized during the Delta wave this summer, children have been particularly impacted during this wave.

For more on all this, I'm joined by Dr. Mark Kline. He's the physician in chief at Children's Hospital New Orleans.

Dr. Kline, very good to have you on the "NewsHour."

Can you just give us a sense of what you're seeing in your hospital? Who are the patients coming in? How are they doing?

Dr. Mark Kline, Children’s Hospital New Orleans:

Thanks for having me, William.

You know, we have been hard-hit by Omicron. The amount of community transmission that's going on in New Orleans and across Louisiana is astonishing. And so we know that there are lots and lots of infected children in the community, as there are adults in the community with this virus.

And our hospitalizations have gone up very dramatically, from three children in the hospital for COVID just two weeks ago to 23 in the hospital today, including three in the pediatric intensive care unit.

Many of the children that we're seeing who require hospitalization and more intensive care have underlying medical conditions, but about a third do not. They're perfectly healthy children otherwise. And so this is very much tracking like the Delta surge did over the course of the summer, where we see a lot of children sick in the community, fortunately, most of them with relatively mild illness, recovering uneventfully in many cases, but a good portion requiring hospitalization and even intensive care.

William Brangham:

We know that kids 5 and up now are eligible to be vaccinated.

Are most of these kids in the hospital vaccinated or not?

Dr. Mark Kline:

No.

I can tell you a snapshot of the 23 children who are hospitalized at Children's Hospital New Orleans right now is that none have been vaccinated. Kids 5 and older, of course, are eligible. The rate of vaccination nationally for children between 5 and 11 years of age is just 23 percent.

And for children 12 to 17 years of age, it's about 60 percent. We're doing a little bit better there. But we have a long way to go for both the younger children and for the adolescents to get them vaccinated and protected.

Here in Louisiana, the numbers are even lower. And so it's a very unfortunate thing. This is our ticket out of this pandemic, and we can almost assure that a vaccinated child will not be ill enough with COVID to require hospitalization.

William Brangham:

Do you or your staff have the opportunity to talk to these kids' parents about why they chose not to vaccinate their kids or haven't yet?

Dr. Mark Kline:

Yes, and it's a mix.

There are parents who certainly express regret concerning the decision not to have their children vaccinated. There are others who remain adamant that they will not and would not, even if they had known their child would come down with COVID.

I think, for the most part, what I have seen over the past year is that most of the parents who are unvaccinated and the parents who have failed to vaccinate their children are not hard-line anti-vaxxers. They're not this group that thinks that vaccines are evil or poison.

They are people who have doubts. They're skeptical of the speed with which the vaccine was developed. They're worried that corners may have been cut. They're worried that there's just too little experience with the vaccine in children.

But we're dealing with this pandemic right now. Children are getting sick right now. And, unfortunately, almost 1,000 American children have died of COVID already. So, the time to protect our children is right now.

William Brangham:

The CDC again reiterated this belief that — or this evidence that Omicron does seem to be milder, certainly for adults, and they argue for children as well.

And that's led some people to think, oh, milder means, OK, we can relax a little bit.

It sounds like your experience is that that's not necessarily the right message.

Dr. Mark Kline:

Yes, William, I hope that it's milder. I hope it turns out Omicron is milder. I hope that it's not just wishful thinking.

I think it may well be true that a smaller proportion of children infected with Omicron will require hospitalization, but for those children who do require hospitalization, I have not seen the evidence as yet that their hospital courses will be milder in some way.

And I'm worried that we will still see children who are seriously or critically ill. And I hate to make a prediction like this, but I worry very much that we will see some deaths.

And so I always emphasize to parents and to doctors when I'm talking to them that statistics are fine at a population level, and to say that children rarely die of COVID is true on a population basis. But if the child who dies happens to be your child, it's 100 percent for you.

William Brangham:

All right, Dr. Mark Kline, physician in chief at Children's Hospital New Orleans, thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Mark Kline:

Thank you, William.