By Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P]
The country currently has more than 1,450 children hospitalized for COVID-19, the highest number so far in the pandemic, said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), on Sunday.
The virus continues to advance in the U.S. due to variants, where Delta has been the main strain in the resurgence of the disease, and many of these children hospitalized with COVID-19 are not vaccinated because they are under 12 years of age.
Collins said in an interview on ABC News' "This Week" that the United States is paying "a terrible price" because of the rapid increase in cases, especially among unvaccinated people.
"We have vaccines that we know are highly effective and safe, and yet half the country is still not fully vaccinated," Collins said.
He added that almost all of the deaths are from unvaccinated people. "And now it's younger people, including children."
The situation is becoming very alarming for the country's paediatricians, who say they are worried because "the number of children in hospital is increasing and they are more seriously ill".
With classes back in session, the official asked parents to think of the face masks as a "life-saving medical device" and not as a "political statement or an invasion of their freedoms.
And the use of the masks, he said, will prevent outbreaks that force a return to remote learning.
For her part, the president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Randi Weingarten, told NBC News that 90 percent of teachers in the union have been vaccinated, and she said she is reconsidering last October's policy on voluntary vaccination of its members.
"I think circumstances have changed and I think vaccination is a community responsibility," he said.
On the same program, the U.S. government's chief epidemiologist, Anthony Fauci, reiterated that there will be no federal mandate to require immunization against COVID-19.
However, he estimated that if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fully approves the vaccines that now have emergency use authorization, which could happen "in the next few weeks," many companies and private entities could announce vaccination mandates, he said.
You may be interested in: "Getting the COVID vaccine showed my family how much I love them": Santiago, 12 years old
