The Omicron variant continues to spread in the U.S. and New York health authorities are seeing an increase in the number of children hospitalized due to Covid-19, and the White House pledged earlier today that it would quickly resolve the problem with a shortage of diagnostic tests in the country.
The New York State Department of Health "is closely monitoring the trend of increasing pediatric hospitalizations associated with Covid-19," it said in a statement."
"The largest increase is in New York City," where admissions quadrupled in the week beginning December 19, compared to the week beginning December 5, it added. Half of the admissions involve children under 5 years old, meaning they are not yet of age to be vaccinated."
The number of Covid-19 cases in the US continues to rise, with about 190.000 new infections daily, on average, in the last seven days, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The Omicron variant and the holiday season, which is synonymous with travel and family gatherings, have also caused an increase in demand for testing in the US. In some areas, however, they are hard to come by.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the White House adviser on pandemic response, has assured that the problem will be resolved quickly. "One of the current problems is that (the tests) won't be fully available to everyone until January. But we are addressing the problem, which will be resolved soon," he said, speaking on the ABC television network."
President Joe Biden announced last week that 500 million tests would be purchased by federal authorities and distributed free of charge. But those tests are not due to be delivered until January and this is drawing strong criticism of the White House's handling of the pandemic and the fact that for weeks its strategy has been focused primarily on vaccination.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked on December 6, a few days after the first case of Omicron was detected in the US, about the difficulty many were having in getting tested. At the time, she had ironically replied, "Should we send a free test to all Americans?"
Source: First Issue
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