Dr. Larry Kociolek is a pediatric physician and Director of the Infection Prevention and Control program at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. He says over the past two months, the hospital has seen a 500% increase in the number of children diagnosed with COVID-19 each day.
"If we see further surges of COVID-19, that has the very real risk of stressing our healthcare resources that will just simply not allow us to provide prompt care to all children who need life-saving care for illness or injuries."
The number of COVID-19 cases in children nationwide has jumped from 40,000 cases a week in July to 180,000 last week. That's a fourfold increase in just a month.
Also Thursday, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker announced a statewide indoor mask mandate, as well as a vaccine mandate for school personnel and medical workers.
