More Hospitalisations, Less Severe: What Is Omicron's Effect On Children

Omicron In Children: According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, almost 199,000 children were reported infected with Covid-19 in the week ending December 23.

New pediatric Covid hospitalizations have hit a record-high in the United States, as children are increasingly swept up in Omicron's lightning spread.

While experts are concerned, and stress the need to step up vaccination among kids, early indications suggest that the new variant's rate of severe disease could in fact be lower, and its extreme contagiousness is behind the rapid rise.

The raw data might also be muddied by coincidental infections that aren't the main cause of a hospital admission.

Numbers spiking