Virginia’s new data tool fixed after vastly underreporting children hospitalized with COVID-19

State health officials say they’ve fixed a new data tool tracking child coronavirus cases that had significantly underreported hospitalizations, making the new count 1.5 times higher.

The Virginia Department of Health temporarily pulled down the COVID-19 dashboard Tuesday and updated it with over 500 more cases, after a Pilot reporter alerted staff to a vast discrepancy a day earlier. On Monday, the agency reported there had been just 380 children hospitalized with the disease since the onset of the pandemic statewide.

That count is less than the number Hampton Roads has seen over the course of the public health crisis. In September, the health department indicated about 1,000 people under age 20 had been hospitalized throughout Virginia. Following the Tuesday correction, the dashboard, which uses a narrower age group of up to 17 years old, reflected 946 hospitalizations.

In a statement, the health department said: “There was an inadvertent oversight in the code that processes the data that feeds the dashboard, resulting in an inaccurate number of hospitalizations.”

Logan Anderson, a department spokesman, said no other numbers on the dashboard were affected by the mistake. Two more cases between Monday and Tuesday came through when the data was reset Tuesday, bringing the total up to 948 hospitalizations, he said.

The recent rise in children getting sick from the coronavirus prompted the state to create the tool displaying case, hospitalization and death numbers for people under age 18. Infections in children increased with the spread of the delta variant, a more contagious mutation of the virus.

Throughout Virginia, over 128,000 children have been diagnosed with COVID-19. Ten have died, three of whom were in Hampton Roads.

As of Oct. 7, more than 6 million children in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19, and the number of new child cases remains “exceptionally high,” according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Nationwide, children represented about one in four of the weekly reported cases Sept. 30 through Oct. 7. That’s consistent with what is happening in Virginia, where juveniles made up 23% of new cases over the week ending Oct. 9, according to the corrected dashboard.

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Health experts say the increased share is in part because vaccines are not allowed in anyone younger than 12. Children are still likely to be asymptomatic or have mild symptoms. Even the updated hospitalization count represents about 0.05% of Virginia’s children.

But more are ending up in the intensive care unit and being put on serious medications than earlier in the crisis, Dr. Laura Sass, Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters’ medical director of infection prevention and control, has said in previous interviews.

Full Pfizer vaccination is 93% effective at preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations among people ages 12-18, according to a small study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency studied young people who were hospitalized at 19 pediatric hospitals in 16 states from June through September, when delta was the dominant strain.

Almost three out of four of the COVID-19 patients in the study had an underlying health condition, elevating their risk of severe illness.

Public health officials recommend that everyone at least 12 years old get vaccinated. The Pfizer vaccine has been approved for teens and is seeking authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to expand eligibility to children ages 5-11.

Children in the 5-11 age group made up more than one in 10 of the COVID-19 cases reported statewide between Oct. 3 and Oct. 9, the most recent week available.

Elisha Sauers, 757-839-4754, elisha.sauers@pilotonline.com