A group of more than 220 children's hospitals is imploring the Biden administration for help, as a surge of young COVID-19 patients puts an "unprecedented strain" on their facilities and staff across the country.

Pediatric hospitals are "at or near capacity" and they expect to see more child patients as the school year resumes, according to the Children's Hospital Association.

"[T]here may not be sufficient bed capacity or expert staff to care for children and families in need," wrote association CEO Mark Wietecha in a letter to President Biden on Aug. 26.

There are a number of reasons for the pressure on the pediatric health care system.

The recent surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the delta variant has afflicted children more seriously than previous strains had, and children under age 12 still cannot get vaccinated. Some children are coming down with the coronavirus and RSV, a seasonal respiratory virus that can be dangerous in kids, at the same time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The hospitalization rate in the most recent week ( 8/26 ) has the same hospitalization rate (0.9%) as the prior week (8/19).

That's the ***cumulative*** hospitalization rate. All hospitalizations added up since the beginning of the pandemic. It did tick up to 0.9% from 0.8% in June. But this means that the rate 0.9% is made by much more pre-delta data than delta data.

Also, at this point several hospital officials have stated that children hospitalized with covid in this wave have tended to have more severe disease than those hospitalized in prior waves.

Anonymous wrote:The hospitalization rate in the most recent week ( 8/26 ) has the same hospitalization rate (0.9%) as the prior week (8/19).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20and%20CHA%20-%20Children%20and%20COVID-19%20State%20Data%20Report%208.19%20FINAL.pdf

Most recent AAP data on hospitalizations:

Hospitalizations / covid cases for kids = 0.9% for the most recent week, and for states reporting.

Note that it was between 1.0% and 3.8% between May 2020 and Dec. 2020. So it was WORSE then.

About the AAP hospitalization data, I posted, on the first page of this thread, so exactly one month ago:

Unlike the other metrics, only 24 states + NYC contribute hospitalization figures to that report (see table p.27 of the latest report here https://downloads.aap.org/AAP/PDF/AAP%20and%20CHA%...ta%20Report%207.22%20FINAL.pdf )
In particular Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas are currently not reporting hospitalization figures.

The numbers have gone up by a lot in the 08/26/2021 report compared to the 08/19/2021 report that you linked. The hospitalizations-reporting states are starting to see the steep increases that the non-reporting states have been seeing.

https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/children-and-covid-19-state-level-data-report/