Pediatric coronavirus hospital admissions in New York City have increased nearly five-fold since the week ending Dec. 11 through Dec. 23.
Compared to the week of Dec. 5 to Dec. 11 when there were 22 pediatric admissions in New York City, there is a near five-fold increase through Dec. 23, when the state reported 109 pediatric admissions, according to New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett who announced the data Monday.
During the same period, there was a two-and-a-half-fold increase from 70 admissions to 184 statewide.
This data will be revised because Dec. 19 to Dec. 23 is currently a partial week of data reporting from the state.
CNN reported Sunday that officials issued a health advisory late last week which indicated a four-fold increase in New York City’s pediatric admissions through data available as of Dec. 19.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul once again encouraged parents Monday to get their children vaccinated and noted a gap between first and second doses for pediatric vaccines.
While acknowledging the time lag between first and second dose, Hochul said 27.3% of 5- to-11-years-old statewide have received one dose, a number which mirrors nationwide statistics. Hochul said 16.4% have completed the series which is up from 11% two weeks ago.
Two million testing kits which contain two tests each are going to New York City schools by Friday.
Meanwhile, about a third of the 608 nursing homes across New York state have at least one resident with a Covid-19 infection, but only about two thirds of nursing home residents have been fully vaccinated and boosted, Bassett said Monday.
“We have done pretty well in getting the nursing home residents vaccinated – nearly 90% are fully vaccinated. But we are not doing as well as we would like in getting people boosted. And this seems to be particularly important in protecting against adverse outcomes of Omicron infection,” Bassett said.
She added that officials are working in a “very granular way,” county by county to improve the booster rate.



