Pediatric hospitals full of COVID-19 patients as US schools open: media

NEW YORK - US pediatric hospitals are filling with young coronavirus patients as schools are allowing students, maskless or with masks, back into the classroom amid school season and recent surge in infections driven by the Delta variant, USA Today reported Tuesday.

Children's hospitals in Tennessee will be full by the end of this week, the state health department projected, said the report.

The report illustrated that children in one pre-K classroom in Georgia were sent home on Thursday following possible contact with a person in school who had tested positive and another school in Tennessee delayed the school year start date by one week because of a number of COVID-19 cases among staff.

"And some schools are closing as soon as they're opening their doors," said the USA Today, adding that a district in Mississippi reported 114 COVID-19-positive students for the week of July 24-30 and 608 students under quarantine, pushing two high schools and a middle school to virtual learning until Aug 16.

The American Academy of Pediatrics sent a letter to acting commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration Janet Woodcock last week, urging the agency to continue working aggressively toward authorizing vaccines for children under 12, according to the report.