> Covid hospitalizations for children are at an all-time high.

I initially assumed this was true, though I also assumed that COVID-related hospitalization for children was extremely low. When I checked, though, it does not appear to be true.

For ages 5-17 (school-aged kids), hospitalization rates peaked at 1.4/100k in September 2021.[1]

As of Dec 15, 2021, 655 children 0-17 have died from COVID[2]. That's certainly not good, but it's a very small number relatively speaking. Consider that in 2018, there were 3,820 for ages 0-14 due to "unintentional injury".[3]

1: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_3.html

2: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...

3: https://www.cdc.gov/injury/images/lc-charts/leading_causes_o...

CovidNET data is a few weeks out of date and not all parts of the country are experiencing the latest wave at the same time. AAP report based on states reporting more current data shows we are setting records for hospitalized children in several states: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2022-01-04/... A better criticism would be to investigate how they are defining “covid patient” because if 7% of a city has an active covid infection, you’d expect 7% of hospital patients there for other reasons to have it too.

That said the trend is not great and this will only accelerate with school back in session and community transmission very high across the country. We’re setting new national records for hospitalized adult covid patients too, for what it’s worth.

I don’t find comparisons to other causes of death of children compelling. Nor is death the only serious long term outcome to be concerned about with covid.