Younger adults and children are being hospitalized with COVID-19.
There’s a concern if we don’t outpace the virus with more vaccinated adults, the virus and its variants will infect more children with more serious disease.
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While children are out and about, playing sports and going to school after having being indoors for nearly a year, more and more are getting exposed to COVID-19 and getting sick enough to be hospitalized. While adults are getting vaccinated, there are no protections for children.
READ: Michigan COVID hospitalizations: Half of 3K patients are younger than 60
“There are hundreds of thousands getting vaccinated, but it’s going to take a while,” said Dr. Anu Malani, Director of infection control at St. Joseph Mercy Health System.
Dr. Oveta Fuller, the University of Michigan virologist who sits on the FDA’s advisory board for the vaccines, said that those being hospitalized are getting younger because the virus looks for suitable hosts in order to reproduce. AS more adults get vaccinated, the virus has fewer places to go, so it will seek out hosts that have no protections -- like children.
That’s why it is so critical that those approved for the vaccine to get it in order to outrun the virus before it turns its attention to more children, who will remain unprotected until a vaccine is approved for their use.