Omicron is pushing Covid-19 hospital admissions among children to record levels in the U.S. and the U.K. Doctors say the variant’s infectiousness—and not any increased severity—is probably mostly responsible.
Throughout the pandemic, children have been much less likely than adults to suffer severe illness from Covid-19, and doctors say that this appears to be true for Omicron, too. But sky-high case numbers mean that more children are ending up in the hospital both with Covid-19 and because of the disease, underscoring how a likely milder variant can still do more damage, simply by infecting more people.