Omicron and children: could someone explain this to me?

[JanisMoplin]

Let me start by saying I am not in favour of shutting schools at all. DS already had both Delta and then Omicron ( both mild). We all got Omicron and were fine.

But could someone explain Prof Christina Pagel's panic to me. I am bad at statistics and need an explainer. twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1479535670586654720/photo/1

As we don't know how many of those children were admitted "with" covid and how many because of covid, I would say knowing the numbers of covid positive children in hospital is not particularly helpful. Apparently 1 in 15 people (in England) have covid right now, it's not surprising that an awful lot of children being admitted for such things as a broken bone or appendicitis are testing positive for covid.

I think it’s that case numbers are very high. This means much greater numbers of children hospitalised and experiencing long Covid overall.

Mitigations like filters and ventilation in schools, proper track and trace etc haven’t (broadly speaking) been implemented well, so more kids will have these health outcomes than if these things were in place.

None of what she is reporting is statistics. It is actual numbers. It is therefore not comparable to other points in the pandemic as the incidence of covid has never been as high. She either does not understand or more likely using others' ignorance for publicity.

The recent ages of children testing positive as a proportion of all cases is higher with omicron - up to20 % of reported cases are in under 19s.

Doctors in the US and elsewhere are reporting more cases with croup in the 0-5s.

If you look further at her Twitter account you will see more statistics about this.