ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported a 62% increase in the number of children being admitted to Pennsylvania hospitals in the past week bringing the total number of children hospitalized statewide this month to over 1,600.
But in the Lehigh Valley, there are no children ages 0-17 in hospitals with COVID-19 complications.
Dr. Tibisay Villalobos-Fry, chief of the Department of Pediatrics for infectious diseases at Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital says while more children are testing positive, the cases aren’t serious for the most part.
“I can tell you that right now we do not have an increase in children admitted with COVID at least not in our area,” Villaobos-Fry said.
At the moment, she said, the hospital has not admitted any children for COVID complications, aside from one COVID-positive baby being treated for other underlying medical conditions.
“There are way more children testing positive, a lot of more younger children testing positive for COVID but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are getting sicker and being admitted to the hospital, at least not yet,” she added.
Villalobos said masking is key when it comes to controlling the virus’s transmission among children.
Just this week, Gov. Tom Wolf said he wants a statewide requirement that students in classrooms wear masks as protection and he urged lawmakers to work on a bill to that effect.