The main epidemiologist of the White House, Anthony Fauci, affirmed this Wednesday that it is inevitable that more children end up in the hospital due to the increase in cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.
“It seems that omicron causes a less serious disease but the acute volume of infections due to its deep contagiousness means that more children will end up infected,” Fauci said at the press conference of the US government’s response team to the pandemic.
President Joe Biden’s medical adviser stressed that minors with “other underlying illnesses” are likely to be the ones who end up in the hospital. “This is inevitable,” he pointed out.
In that sense, he stressed that the best way to prevent children who are not vaccinated due to their age from getting infected is for people around them to be immunized.
“When they are outside, if they are old enough to tolerate a face mask, put a mask on them, especially in places where people congregate,” said the expert.
In the United States, the authorities have authorized the vaccination of minors between 5 and 17 years. In addition, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended that the booster dose of Pfizer’s vaccine be given to children who are immunosuppressed.