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The state is looking into a problem with its new data tool for child coronavirus cases, after a Pilot reporter alerted public health officials that hospitalizations appeared to be undercounted by hundreds.
In its new dashboard for cases among children launched Monday, The Virginia Department of Health reported there have been nearly 128,000 pediatric cases of COVID-19, with 380 hospitalizations and nine deaths since March 2020 statewide.
But the number of hospitalized patients seemed extremely low. The Virginian-Pilot had previously reported from the agency that young people under 20 had accounted for about 1,000 hospitalizations so far. That was in September.
Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters had at least 57 COVID-19 hospitalizations in September, a CHKD spokeswoman said. If the dashboard were correct, that would mean the patients in one hospital for a single month made up 15% of all child hospitalizations for the span of the pandemic.
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Logan Anderson, a Virginia Department of Health spokesman, said something indeed appeared to be “off,” but the epidemiology data team was still delving into the matter. The agency didn’t believe it would have answers until maybe Tuesday, he said.
Department officials did not pull down the dashboard from the website while they investigated the problem.
The new tool also doesn’t sync with previous data from the state on child deaths. Before its launch, Virginia had indicated there were 13 deaths of people under 20. Three were in the Eastern region.
The reduction in the death count from 13 to nine is a product of the new age range that the tool tracks: 0-17. The four other deaths were 18 and 19-year-olds, Anderson said.
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The rise in children getting sick from the coronavirus prompted the state to create the new tool displaying case, hospitalization and death numbers for people under age 18. Infections in children increased along with the spread of the delta variant, a more contagious mutation of the virus.
As of Oct. 7, more than 6 million children in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, and the number of new child cases remains “exceptionally high,” according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Over 148,000 pediatric cases were added in the prior week.
Children represented close to 25% of the weekly reported cases Sept. 30 through Oct. 7. That increased share of new cases is in part because vaccines are not allowed for anyone under age 12. Though health experts say children are still likely to be asymptomatic or have mild symptoms, more are ending up in intensive care units and being put on serious medications than earlier in the crisis.
Public health officials recommend everyone older than 12 get vaccinated. The Pfizer vaccine has been approved for adolescents 12 and up and the company is seeking authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to expand eligibility to children ages 5 to 11.
The state’s dashboard will show case counts, rates and the percentage of all cases among children by week and by pediatric age group. The tool can sort data to show counts by region and health district and will contain four new age subsets: 0-4, 5-11, 12-15 and 16-17 years.
The dashboard will be updated weekly on Fridays.
Elisha Sauers, 757-839-4754, elisha.sauers@pilotonline.com