Just a few weeks before schools open across Florida, the number of new cases and hospitalizations due to Covid-19 has increased.
© Mario Tama / Getty Images
EL CENTRO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 21: Doctors treat a COVID-19 patient in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at El Centro Regional Medical Center in Imperial County, on July 21, 2020 in El Centro, California . Imperial County currently has the highest death rate and almost highest COVID-19 infection rate in California. The rural county, which is 85 percent Latino, borders Mexico and Arizona and endures high rates of poverty and air pollution while lacking medical services. In California, Latinos make up about 39 percent of the population, but account for 55 percent of confirmed coronavirus cases amid the pandemic. (Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images)
On July 16, the state had a total of 23,170 children ages 17 and under who had tested positive since the start of the pandemic, according to the Florida Department of Health. By July 24, that number increased to 31,150.
That’s a 34% increase in new cases among children in eight days.
And more children in Florida require hospitalization. As of July 16, 246 children had been hospitalized with coronavirus. By July 24, that number had increased to 303.
That’s a 23% increase in Covid-19 children’s hospitalizations in eight days.
During that same period, the death toll among children in Florida increased from 4 to 5.
On July 18, Kimora “Kimmie” Lynum died of complications from Covid-19, according to records from the state health department. The 9-year-old girl’s family said Kimmie had no known pre-existing conditions.
The increases in Covid-19 children’s cases and hospitalizations come amid rampant debate over whether children should return to classrooms this fall or whether they should continue to learn remotely.
They also directly contradict the claims of the US Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, that children are “brakes on the disease” that “they do not contract it and transmit it themselves.”
Researchers in South Korea found that young people between the ages of 10 and 19 transmit the virus as easily as adults.
And the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, has repeatedly said that scientists are still studying how fast children under the age of 10 can transmit the virus, as many of them They have stayed at home and away from their peers during the peak months of this pandemic.
But it is not just the number of new cases and hospitalizations that is increasing in Florida. The test’s positivity rate among children also increased: from 13.4% to 14.4% between July 16-24, according to the state health department.
The children’s test positivity rate was particularly high in Martin County (25.3%) and Miami-Dade County (19.6%).
But the state has ordered schools to physically open next month. In some districts, that means sending children to school in as little as two weeks. And that has some parents, educators and doctors on the edge.
“I understand the need to open schools,” said Dr. Andrew Pastewski, father and medical director of the Jackson South Medical Center intensive care unit in Miami.
“Children need to develop, they need to grow, they need to learn, they need to develop social skills,” he said. “However, we are emerging right now. I don’t think opening up during a wave is the right time.”
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