New analyses from the National Institute of Public Health (FHI) show that the risk of hospitalization for children and young people has decreased during delta and omicron variants waves, especially in infants.
With the alpha variant, two out of 1,000 unvaccinated corona-infected people under the age of 18 were admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 as the main reason for the admission. With the delta and omicron variants, the risk fell to 0.7 and 0.6 out of 1,000, respectively, a new study from the FHI shows.
“We have conducted extensive testing for COVID-19 among children and young people from January 2021. We, therefore, believe that the calculations we have made to assess the risk of hospitalization if a child is infected are quite close to the real one,” Margrethe Greve-Isdahl at the FHI noted.
The risk of hospitalization has always been significantly higher for infants (children under one year) than for older children. Almost half of all admissions with COVID-19 among children in Norway were infants.
With the alpha variant, the admission risk with COVID-19 as the main cause amounted to 4.1% in infants. With the delta and omicron variants, this share fell to 1.6% and 1.7%, respectively. It is especially the number of admissions among children under three months of age that has decreased, the FHI added.
“We do not know for sure why it is especially the youngest children who have had a lower admission risk, but we believe that the vaccination of pregnant women has contributed to this,” Greve-Isdahl concluded.
Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews
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