Photo: AFP
Doctors in Florida are seeing more coronavirus infections among children, as students begin to return to classrooms.
There has been an increase in cases among children at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood. Admitted children are sicker than the ER has seen and most are requiring intensive care.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said the share of pediatric hospitalizations is still between 1.1% and 1.4% in the state, which is how it has behaved throughout the pandemic.
"We saw this last year when school was coming in, there was a lot of things put out and I think sometimes there's agendas at play," DeSantis said. "There's been no change in the proportion of pediatric patients who are Covid positive. Now obviously we have more people that are Covid positive in hospitals than we did six weeks ago, so the raw numbers are increased for everybody, but there's not been an increase in the proportion."
20 COVID-positive children sought treatment at the South Florida hospital's emergency department in June, and went well over 200 in July and, in this month they are already up to over 160.
DeSantis has attempted to block school districts from imposing public health protections on students, saying parents should decide whether their child should wear a mask at school. Three school districts, Alachua, Broward and Leon counties have defied the the governor's order.
Miami-Dade's superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, said Florida's largest district will decide what to do after consulting with experts in public health and medicine.