"Viruses want to live and continue to survive," she said. "And so if children are not necessarily getting very sick, but are spreading this variant to moreunvaccinated people, we're basically offering the virus more opportunities to persist and potentially become even more infectious."
And the delta variant is spreading quickly. The U.S. is once again reporting more than 1,000 new coronavirus infections every hour, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data for the week ending Wednesday. (The totals represent only about 10% of the numbers reported in the worst week in January.)
“Because it’s the most highly contagious variant to date based on all the data we’ve accumulated so far, we expect to see more rapid transmission of this virus from adults and adolescents to children,” said Dr. James Versalovic , pathologist-in-chief and interim pediatrician-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Indeed, children are making up a larger percentage of all COVID-19 cases.
Overall, children account for 14% (more than 4 million) of cases. But last week, kids made up 22.3% (19,482 out of 87,374) of weekly reported cases, according to data by the American Academy of Pediatrics .
Children are only 16% of the population.
Meanwhile in Tennessee, the state government has dialed back efforts to vaccinate minors against coronavirus.
Health reporter Brett Kelman from the Nashville Tennessean , part of the USA TODAY Network, broke the news Tuesday that the Tennessee Department of Health is stopping all adolescent vaccine outreach – not just for coronavirus, but all diseases – after pressure from Republican state lawmakers.
It removed a flyer from its website and social media that said, "Tennesseans 12+ Eligible for Vaccines. Give COVID-19 vaccines a shot."
The health department ordered its staff to do "no proactive outreach regarding routine vaccines" and "no outreach whatsoever regarding the HPV vaccine," and no pre-planning for flu shot events at schools.
Additionally, the department will no longer send postcards reminding teens to get their second vaccine dose. Instead, cards will be sent to adults so that the reminders are not “potentially interpreted as solicitation to minors." The department will stop COVID-19 vaccine events on school property, including clinics that also vaccinate adults.
Kelman explained how things got to this point.
The rollback started, he said, after state immunization chief Dr. Michelle Fiscus sent a letter to medical providers explaining the state's “Mature Minor Doctrine,” a legal mechanism by which they are allowed to vaccinate minors 14 and above without parents' consent if the teens meet the definition of "mature minor" in Tennessee law. Fiscus was responding to questions from providers. The doctrine was established in 1987 and had been on the health department's website since at least 2008.
The letter, along with the social media flyers, angered conservative lawmakers who erupted at a mid-June hearing, Kelman said. "They brought the Tennessee Department of Health in there and just went after them and accused them of peer pressuring kids and strong arming them into getting vaccinated, circumventing parents."
Even though, he reported, at the June 16 hearing, "Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey said to her knowledge the doctrine had only been invoked eight times this year. Three of those instances involved her own kids, who were vaccinated while she was at work."
After that hearing, Kelman said, the health department "began to very quietly roll some stuff back, first they deleted some Twitter posts and Facebook flyers that they knew the lawmakers had seen. Because they had actually held them up during the hearing as examples of peer pressure."
Immunization chief Fiscus was fired. "I have been terminated for doing my job because some of our politicians have bought into the anti-vaccine misinformation campaign rather than taking the time to speak with the medical experts," she wrote in a statement.
