those aggressive steps as well. polo sandoval, thank you so much. now i bring in dr. peter hotez from the baylor school of medicine. hi, dr. hotez. nice to see you. let s begin with this week s return to the classroom. i can tell you from my experience as a mom, we had a whole text chain with parents saying, what is this upcoming week going to look like? a lot of parents aren t sure what to think about sending their kids back to school this week. what advice do you have? pamela, the parents aren t the only ones, same with the medical professionals. we haven t had to deal with omicron in the schools yet. as bad as delta was, it s not the same as omicron whose trance m
pathogenicity, but so many people are getting infected that the total amount of people that would require hospitalization might be up. so we can t be complacent in these reports which are likely accurate that it is ultimately in the big picture less severe. we re still going to get a lot of hospitalizations. some school districts facing a spike of child covid cases have announced at least a partial transition to online learning. cnn s polo sandoval is in new york for us and it has seen a record number of cases just this past week, so polo, how have schools frprepared for their return? reporter: they re doing what they can to make sure itthe children are safe. they re adapting to this way of teaching, not just the covid era, but specifically the spread we re seeing with the omicron variant. there are some taking a very aggressive approach, including in the atlanta area. there are multiple school
i think what will happen, you know, it s starting up in new york and washington, and that s where it s the worst right now. it eventually will subside over the coming weeks. it s picking up in the south now in georgia, louisiana, mississippi, that s where it will go next and then it s going to head out west. we ll see this big rolling wave going across the country. we ve seen that before. is it clear whether the omicron variant is causing children to be sicker than the previous variants? we re seeing this uptick in pediatric hospitalizations. i think we re seeing that in two forms. first of all, again, this is so highly transmissible that i don t think it s selectively targeting the kids. it was a little more like delta but more so, that it s twisting the virus blizzard that s landing the kids in the hospital along with everyone else. those kids are found to be infected once they re admitted
for other reasons, and others are admitted for bona fide reasons. despite the pfizer vaccines are there for ages five and up, only 20% of kids nationally are getting vaccinated with that vaccine. so that s really missing an opportunity, even among the adolescents. here in the south the rate of vaccinations for 12 to 17-year-olds is only half what it is in the northeast. so we are squandering opportunities to get kids safely through this part of the school year. i want to talk about young children, because this morning former fda commissioner scott gottlieb said omicron may be a bigger threat to toddlers because of the way it binds to the airway cells. based on what you ve seen, do you agree that younger children may be at greater risk? we have seen younger kids get admitted to the hospital, and in
ou see it. robert, we really appreciate you coming see it. robert, we really appreciate you coming on. see it. robert, we really appreciate you coming on, robert see it. robert, we really appreciate you coming on, robert fox, - see it. robert, we really appreciate| you coming on, robert fox, defence editor of the evening standard. france is relaxing its travel rules for vaccinated brits. travellers will no longer need a compelling reason to visit the country and won t be required to self isolate on arrival. a negative covid test, taken 2a hours before leaving the uk, is required. despite opting to ease restrictions, france is still grappling with a surge in omicron cases. it reported well over 300,000 cases today. and the situation in the uk is similar over 100,000 cases. here s the bbc s transport correspondent katy austin. when the restrictions were introduced, that camejust in time to affect lots of people s travel plans. it affected a lot of people and the travel industry we