As cases in children rise, pediatricians' group urges FDA to move swiftly on vaccines for kids

ATLANTA - With COVID-19 infections rising dramatically in children, Atlanta pediatrician Dr. Hansa Bhargava, a senior medical director at WebMD, says she is hearing from colleagues who work at pediatric hospitals and emergency departments that they seeing a jump in kids with the coronavirus.

"I think parents should realize the delta variant is real, that the variant is very contagious," Bhargava says.

The good news, Dr. Bhargava says, is COVID-19 complications are rare in children.  

Just 2% of those infected have required hospitalization.  

But, she says, the hyper contagious variant could change that.

"As numbers rise, hospitalizations will rise, because, it's just a numbers game," Bhargava says.  "The more cases that are out there, the more kids that will get sicker, and hospitalizations will rise."

Children make up about one in five new COVID-19 cases.

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After infections in children nearly doubled week to week, the head of the AAP sent a letter to the Acting Commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Janet Woodcock, warning "the Delta variant is surging at extremely alarming rates."

Dr. Lee Savio Beers wrote, "last week we saw the largest week-over-week percentage increase in pediatric COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.  The data show 71,726 COVID cases reported last week, almost double the 38,654 reported in the previous week."

Bhargava says she is concerned about the unchecked spread of the delta variant.

"The more COVID virus is out there, the more likely it is to mutate, and the more it mutates, the more likely it is to turn into something that vaccines can't handle and something that can turn into more deaths and more serious complications," Dr. Bhargava says.  "So, we can't allow that virus to go unchecked."

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The AAP is urging the FDA to continue "working aggressively towards authorizing safe and COVID-19 vaccines for children under age 12 as soon as possible."

Both Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna are conducting pediatric COVID-19 vaccine studies in children from age 11 down to 6 months.

The FDA recently asked both companies to double the number of children between the ages of 5 and 11 in their trials, which could slow the authorization process down.

Dr. Bhargava says getting children safely back to in-person learning is a priority.

The AAP has already called for a universal mask mandate in schools, for teachers, staff, and students.

"The American Academy of Pediatrics is concerned that kids get their vaccines, and that is because they want to set the kids up to be as safe as possible," Dr. Bhargava says.

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