According to Bloomberg News, the Omicron variant of coronavirus is linked to complications, death of young children, and hospitalizations. This is in sharp contrast to the previous infection and waves caused by the virus strain. This indicates that the strain may not be mild but highly contagious, as per the Hong Kong study.
Researchers from the Princess Margaret Hospital and the University of Hong Kong have studied hospitalization related to children at the various pandemic stages. They observed that the cases were more severe with Omicron wave with the ongoing outbreak, which is regarded as the worst.
The effects of ongoing outbreak on children
There were 1,147 children in all between 0 and 11 hospitalized in Hong Kong because of Covid-19 from February 5th to February 28th, which was more than 80% compared to children between 0 and 5 years.
The need for hospitalization was more in the case of Omicron, with as many as 21 children, equivalent to 1.83%, getting admitted to the pediatric ICU compared to just one in the other earlier outbreaks in Hong Kong.
For 22 months ever since Covid-19 started in the year 2020 until November 2021, a period that has witnessed various other waves that did not impact Hong Kong as the other countries, but this time around, it penetrated Hong Kong this time, 737 children between ages 0 and 11 had to be hospitalized due to the coronavirus infection.
Omicron has resulted in a greater number of seizures among children that did not receive the vaccination. The virus is targeting the upper airways greater than influenza and the other variants, as revealed by the researchers in a preprint paper that they submitted on March 21st to The Lancet.
Across the globe, it has been observed that individuals with pre-existing medical conditions and the elderly population were vulnerable during the pandemic. However, after a considerable gap, Hong Kong is now being stamped with the Omicron variant virus. It has been related to almost 7,500 deaths, and the maximum number of deaths was among the unvaccinated and the elderly.
Researchers are also saying that one of the main reasons toddlers from 0 to 5 years face severe symptoms is that these children have not been exposed to the virus in the last two years when the others were reeling under the curse. As such, these children have not been able to build up immunity.
The fatality of Omicron in February revealed 0.35% of hospitalization for children, which was higher than that caused by influenza, which was recorded at 0.05%. Many children that had mild symptoms were not hospitalized for the infection.
