COVID-19 cases in children surge 84 percent in one week, study finds

COVID-19 cases in children are up 84 percent in the past week, a new study from the American Academy of Pediatrics [AAP] reported on Wednesday, with 72,000 new instances of the virus reported as of July 29, up from 39,000 cases reported the week prior.

AAP said it had teamed up with Children’s Hospitals of America to help collect and share data about pediatric cases of the virus, which have been only 14.3 percent of the total cumulative cases, the study says. That share rose to 19 percent for the week ending July 29. Since the pandemic began, 4.2 million children have tested positive for the virus. “That’s high and considering the fact that we are vaccinated now, what that’s telling us is that unvaccinated people are getting infected in higher numbers because the virus is more infectious with the Delta variant,” Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, chief of the division of infectious diseases in the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford Medicine and chair of the AAP committee on infectious diseases, told CNN.