On Delta and Kids

Let's Arm Ourselves with Data

There appears to be constant consternation over whether or not the Covid-19 “Delta” variant affect kids more harshly. So let’s arm ourselves with a little more data on Delta and kids. The upshot is Delta is still less severe to kids than any recent Flu season and significantly less severe than the Swine Flu of 2009.

Here's a Graph of the CDC's Covid-Net Hospital Surveillance data showing the weekly rate of hospitalization for Covid among school age kids 5 - 17 years old.

As you can see the current weekly rate of 1.1 per 100,000 kids is still lower than last year's peak of 1.3.

Now for an important comparison:

Here's a series of graphs from the CDC's historic Flu-Net Hospital Surveillance data showing weekly rates of hospitalization for Flu among the same age group of kids. I've included the last 5 flu seasons as well as the 09-10 Swine Flu Pandemic:

As you can see, ALL of the recent 5 flu seasons had peak rates of Flu hospitalization higher than the Covid peak of last winter. The lowest was 1.3 in the mild flu season of 15-16. The average of the last 5 years was a peak of 1.8, 40 percent higher than Covid.

Also bare in mild the Flu numbers are likely an undercount compared to Covid since we never tested for Flu like we currently do for Covid, so the Flu numbers do not contain any of the incidental Hospital stays "with Flu" while the Covid numbers do.

And none of these numbers come close to the Swine Flu of 2009 when child hospitalizations peaked at 4.4, over 3 TIME HIGHER than the Covid peak!

We didn't close down schools during the Swine Flu because we didn't panic. There is no justification to closing schools now. Unfortunately we are in a moral panic over Covid and I'm afraid our children will suffer the most from it.

Anyway 0 and 2,