COVID-19 pandemic when it comes to the number of kids going to Alberta hospitals with the coronavirus, according to provincial data collected by Global News.At the end of 2021, a total of 103 infants under one year old had been to hospital because of COVID-19 since the pandemic began.
By the end of August 2022, that number ballooned to 418. ICU admissions for the same age range jumped from 22 to 77 in that time.For kids aged one to four and five to nine, a similar hospitalization trend has emerged – three times more kids admitted to hospital with COVID-19 in the first eight months of 2022 than in the entire 20 months prior.All other age ranges tracked by provincial authorities have seen about a doubling of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in 2022.“The increase in hospitalizations in children in that age group have certainly been alarming and it’s been reflected in my personal (outpatient) experience,” Dr.
Tehseen Ladha, an Edmonton pediatrician and pediatrics assistant professor at the University of Alberta, told Global News. Albertans to wait another week for bivalent COVID-19 boosters Ladha said most of the kids in her outpatient clinic have had COVID-19, with some landing in hospital.Earlier in the pandemic, Ladha worked in the Stollery Children’s Hospital, She said she has had to refer child patients to intensive care.
A universal sentiment among parents she’s spoken with is they never want to see their kids in hospital.“It’s a terrible time,” Ladha said. “It’s terrible to have your child be so sick that they need to be hospitalized.