'And we need to do everything we can to protect ourselves and to protect our children against what this virus is very capable of doing.' David Kimberlin, an infectious disease pediatrician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told NPR. 'Everything about this virus is unpredictable,' Dr. But an April CDC analysis of hospitalization records showed about 30 percent of children hospitalized with COVID-19 had no underlying conditions that would have put them at increased risk. No one can predict with certainty which children are most at risk of developing severe cases of COVID-19 or MIS-C. Black, Native American and Hispanic children are three times more likely to be hospitalized than white children.More than 5,200 children and teens have developed MIS-C, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, a COVID-19-linked condition that often requires admission to an intensive care unit.The number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 illnesses increased nearly five-fold over the summer months as the delta variant surged.
