April 1 (UPI) —<\/span> During the surge in cases fueled by the Omicron variant, children age 5 years and younger caught COVID-19 at rates six- to eight-fold higher than those seen with the Delta strain, a study published Friday by JAMA Pediatrics found.<\/p>\n However, young children sickened with the Omicron variant of the virus were about half as likely to require treatment in the hospital and\/or intensive care unit compared with those infected with Delta, the data showed.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n Fewer than 2% of children age 5 years and younger who confirmed COVID-19 infections caused by the Omicron variant were admitted to the hospital, the researchers said.<\/p>\n For those found to have been infected with the Delta variant of the virus, this figure was 4%, according to the researchers.\n<\/p>\n “Omicron is highly infectious in children, more so than the Delta variant,” Rong Xu, one of the study co-authors, told UPI in an email.<\/p>\n “While Omicron is [also] less severe, the risk for severe outcomes associated with Omicron is not zero — there are still substantial children infected with Omicron could develop severe outcomes,” said Xu, a professor of biomedical informatics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.\n<\/p>\n Although research indicated that the Omicron variant, which first emerged in South Africa last November, causes less severe illness than earlier strains, it also spread more rapidly, data suggests.\n<\/p>\n Because more people were infected, the United States saw an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations — though fewer deaths — during the surge in cases caused by the variant, including in children, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n The findings of this study are based on analysis of data on more than 45,000 children who tested positive for COVID-19 between Sept. 1, 2021, and Jan. 31.<\/p>\n Half of the children included in the study had been infected with the Omicron variant, while the remainder had Delta, as confirmed by analysis of virus samples, the researchers said.\n<\/p>\n The currently available COVID-19 vaccines — from Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech — have not yet been cleared for use in children age 5 years and younger.<\/p>\n “Given that there is so much that we don’t know, the best way is to take precautions for our children and don’t let them get COVID-19 in the first place,” Xu said.<\/p>\n With the vaccine still not available in this age group, “I think that masking in crowded spaces is still a cost-effective way to limit COVID-19 infections,” she said.\n<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Children under 5 years were less likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 if they were infected with the Omicron variant, according to a new study. File photo by Stephen Shaver\/UPI | License Photo April 1 (UPI) — During the surge in cases fueled by the Omicron variant, children age 5 years and younger caught COVID-19 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1041960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[172,174,261,176,1752,1593,989,425,28],"class_list":["post-1041959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-among","tag-children","tag-covid19","tag-finds","tag-increased","tag-infection","tag-omicron","tag-risk","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1041959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1041959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1041959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1041959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n ![\"Omicron](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Omicron-increased-risk-for-COVID-19-infection-among-children-under-5-study-finds.jpg\" "\\"Omicron")
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\n<\/div>\nChildren under 5 years were less likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 if they were infected with the Omicron variant, according to a new study. File photo by Stephen Shaver\/UPI | License Photo<\/div>\n\n