How many kids have been hospitalized with Delta?

• The Delta variant led to the highest recorded number of child hospitalizations than at any period in the pandemic. Children made up 13% of hospitalizations at one point during the recent surge, with the South and Mountain West particularly affected. 
   
• Hospital stays for children hit a pandemic high in mid-September, with an average of 2,379 patients daily. As of October 4, the number of children staying in the hospital per day was 1,828, a 23% decrease but still higher than any pre-Delta peak.

• Despite the spike in child hospital admissions, September’s pediatric COVID-19 hospitalization rate was one per 100,000 daily, nearly six times lower than the rate for people ages 80 and older.
   
• There have been 1.5 million COVID-19 hospitalizations so far in 2021. Vaccinated people accounted for 17,000 hospitalizations since vaccines became available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

• States with lower vaccination rates also have the highest percentage of ICU beds occupied with COVID-19 patients. As of October 4, 56.6% of the US population was fully vaccinated, but Idaho’s population was 41.96% vaccinated. Meanwhile, coronavirus patients occupied 24.2% of the nation’s ICU beds, yet they occupied 61.1% of Idaho’s beds.

Head to USAFacts.org to learn more, including how your state ranked in hospitalizations in the past year.


Who's getting a third vaccine? 

As of early October, 8.5 million Americans have received an additional COVID-19 vaccine. That’s booster shots for people who got their first dose months ago and people with weakened immune systems receiving additional shots as soon as four weeks after their second dose.

But how many extra shots have states doled out? It’s difficult to tell. The CDC doesn’t have metrics for individual states, but Washington, DC and 20 states have data publicly available. Here’s what we know:

• In October, more people received additional vaccines than people starting or completing the vaccination process.
   
• The CDC defines additional doses and booster shots differently, but its data combines the shots into a single metric.

• At 4.6%, Vermont has the highest share of its population (which is approximately 623,989) getting a third dose. The next highest state is Colorado, with a population of nearly 5.78 million, at 3.9%.
   
• In Texas, the most populous state for which data is available, 2.75% of people have received a third COVID-19 dose. Texas has a population of 29 million.

Is your state on the list? Read more about third vaccine doses in this report.


One last fact