{"id":202873,"date":"2021-12-27T07:00:44","date_gmt":"2021-12-27T07:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/news\/us-alarm-at-rise-in-child-covid-infections-sees-school-closures-back-on-agenda"},"modified":"2021-12-27T07:00:44","modified_gmt":"2021-12-27T07:00:44","slug":"us-alarm-at-rise-in-child-covid-infections-sees-school-closures-back-on-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/news\/us-alarm-at-rise-in-child-covid-infections-sees-school-closures-back-on-agenda","title":{"rendered":"US alarm at rise in child Covid infections sees school closures back on agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A pedestrian carries a child in Times Square in New York City. Photograph: John Angelillo\/UPI\/REX\/Shutterstock As US regional health authorities reacted with alarm to a jump in child Covid infections that caused some school districts to announce returns to remote learning, a leading public health official questioned the need for schools to close, saying: &#8220;We know how to keep schools open, we know how to keep them safe.&#8221; Related: Fauci says Omicron surge will continue and Americans must not be complacent Over the past three weeks, as Omicron-related cases soared in New York City and elsewhere, the number of children hospitalised in New York with Covid-19 quadrupled, the state health department said. The California state epidemiologist Dr Erica Pan wrote on Twitter: &#8220;Unfortunately New York is seeing an increase in pediatric hospitalisations (primarily amongst the unvaccinated), and they have similar [five- to 11-year-old] vaccination rates.&#8221; Across New York state, about 16% of five- to 11-year-olds and 71% of 12- to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Omicron threat stokes fears coast to coast but leading public health expert says &#8216;We know how to keep schools open and safe&#8217;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,1],"tags":[62,96,59,60,250],"class_list":["post-202873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-news","tag-coronavirus","tag-education","tag-health","tag-public-health","tag-vaccines"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}