'A vertical climb': COVID-19 positivity rate among children quadruples at Cook Children's
The positivity rate for COVID-19 across the Cook Children’s Health Care System quadrupled in just one week, the system reported Thursday, with one-quarter of tests coming back positive for the coronavirus.
The trend at Cook Children’s mirrors increases across North Texas and nationally as more children have been infected during a surge fueled by the dominant, highly-contagious omicron variant.
Testing positivity has increased from 5.7% to 25.4% across the Fort Worth-based health care system — which operates a number of clinics and urgent care centers in the region, in addition to Cook Children’s Medical Center. That translates to roughly 400 positive cases among children per day.
The positivity rate more than doubled in just 48 hours: Tuesday afternoon, it was 11.3%.
“It is a surge with a vertical slope,” said Dr. Mary Suzanne Whitworth, medical director of infectious diseases at Cook Children’s Medical Center. “This is not a hill; it is a vertical climb in the number of cases and percent positivity for us.”
Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2021/12/30/a-vertical-climb-covid-19-positivity-rate-among-children-quadruples-at-cook-childrens/