This is NPR's life kid. I'm Mary the Wies Kelly. Within weeks of showing up

the United States, the Omacron variant has landed record numbers of children in

the hospital. The kids still represent a small percentage of those being

hospitalized with COVID-19, but some parents are understandably anxious,

especially those with kids under five who cannot get vaccinated yet. They are

wondering how to navigate life with young children during this surge. So on this

episode of Life Kit, we're posing parents questions to Dr. Ibu Kahn Kalu, a

pediatric infectious disease doctor at Duke University. Before we get to the

parents questions, may I ask you just how things are going at your hospital?

Are you seeing a lot of kids hospitalized with COVID-19? Yes, we are seeing a

few more than we saw both with the Alpha and Delta surges in the past spring

in summer of 2021. And what ages are you seeing? And I suppose part B of

that question is, are they vaccinated? So we've seen across all age groups. We've

seen a couple of small infants and that may be partially because they have

other viral infections spread in in the winter, for example, in fluenza. And then

we're seeing some older kids older than the age of five that should be

eligible for one of the vaccines out there. Unfortunately, more of the children

that are in the hospital are unvaccinated. However, we have younger children

that are not eligible for vaccination and also end up in the hospital with COVID.

And the ones who are hospitalized, what symptoms do they have? Are the

symptoms kids are demonstrating tracking along with adults symptoms or any

differences, you can see? For the most part, they track along with adult

...