3 Children with COVID Have Now Died in RI, State Has 3rd Highest Rate for Kids in U.S.
Friday, September 10, 2021
The Rhode Island Department of Health confirmed to GoLocal on Thursday that since the beginning of the pandemic three children have died with COVID. The agency said, "COVID-19 was not determined to be the primary cause of death in any of these instances."
The Delta variant is going after the unvaccinated with a merciless vengeance. Children under age 12 and other young people who have not been vaccinated are bearing an increasingly larger share of infections. The numbers will understandably show a greater proportion of infections in the unvaccinated compared with vaccinated, but Rhode Island’s children might be faring even worse than the dismal national figures. A recent study by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) shows Rhode Island to have the third-highest per capita rate of all states for COVID infections in children.
For the 30 days ending September 6, data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) show over 55,000 new hospitalizations for COVID in children under age 17.
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For the week ending September 2, the AAP reported nearly 252,000 new COVID cases in children nationwide, almost triple the weekly rate compared with just a month ago.
The spread in schools is already hitting RI as one of the high school football games scheduled for Friday night has been canceled due to the virus.
Along with infections, the number of associated cases of MIS-C in children is also rising. Multiple Inflammatory Syndrome, MIS-C, is a devastating and potentially fatal disorder where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs. To date, 4,661 cases of MIS-C have been reported in children.
To date, Rhode Island has had 24,235 COVID cases in children, representing 15.9% of all COVID cases.
However, the rate of child COVID cases in RI is rising. For the week ending September 2, 26% of all COVID cases in RI were in children. Total COVID cases in children continue to increase in RI, to 515 last week – a more than 28% increase in just one week
New hospitalizations jumped 33% last week to 148 from 111 the week before, with 148 people currently hospitalized.
Most disturbingly, Rhode Island has the third-highest per capita cumulative COVID case rate in children. In comparison, Vermont has the fifth lowest per capita child COVID rate, Maine has the eighth-lowest, with Massachusetts also below the national average.
Rhode Island’s child COVID infection rate is behind only those of Tennessee and South Carolina. To put this in perspective, in July Tennessee made national headlines for discontinuing its outreach for not only COVID but all vaccinations for children, and fired their senior vaccine public health official Dr. Michelle Fiscus because of her efforts to vaccinate teenagers.
Tennessee now also has the dubious distinction of currently having the very highest rate of new COVID infections in the country, as well as the eighth-lowest overall vaccination rate.
Rhode Island should not be proud of being in the company of such dubious peers, and doing such a poor job of protecting its children against COVID infections.
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