went back to school around august, that when we saw the peaks in pediatric cases of kids getting covid going up in the atlanta area and across the state of georgia. we know with this omicron variant, according to health experts, that kids will experience milder symptoms. however, it is highly contagious and we are still seeing that big impact, sending more georgia kids to the hospital. hospitalizations seeing a dramatic increase and kids having to go to the hospital because of their symptoms. now, this is one big reason why the u.s. secretary of education is pleading with school districts all across the country to go back to masking inside. kids and staff, students, faculty, all of the above, if you re in school buildings, to wear a mask, encouraging people to get vaccinated, to do the things we know can help mitigate the spread of covid-19. listen to his plea and why he believes that could be key to keeping kids in school for learning.
you. i the hospitalization numbers are clearly troubling. what would you advise parents to do, especially parents with children who youare too young te vaccinated? what are the risks their children face? what s happening, paula, with omicron we saw a little bit with delta, but it s even more so with omicron and we ve seen in in south africa and the u.k. as well. this is so highly transmissible that it s not necessarily that the virus is targeting kids. it s just that they re getting swept up along with everybody else. and many kids are getting admitted to the hospital and found after the fact they had covid because they ve actually been admitted for other reasons. others are actually admitted with symptomatic covid, meaning respiratory illness and all the other things that we ve been seeing. if you want to protect your kids, especially as schools start to open, because remember, it s about to get worse, especially in high transmission
if you want that full cruise experience, you know, i would recommend waiting a little bit before booking that cruise just to see how things shake out. it s a good point. if you do cruise, like you said, be adaptable. countries and cities in europe are cracking down on the virus, limiting gatherings, some even closing nightclubs as these cases spike. paris just brought back its outdoor mask requirement. so what would you tell people who would like to travel abroad but are worried about their experience being impacted by all of these renewed restrictions? yeah, i mean, i would just say every country s different. research the country you re going to. if you don t care about going to nightclubs in paris because you just want to go to museums, you can still have an amazing trip, get really good deals. but i think what most people are worried about is testing positive abroad because you have to now test within one day of coming back to the u.s. and i know a lot of people just aren t comf
really causing children to be sucker than previous variants? or is it it s to transmissible, more kids are getting it, parents bring them into the hospital out of an abundance of caution or they re there for something else and get this variant? paula, it looks to be just as my friend peter said a combination of those. there are children who are getting infected with omicron and are getting seriously ill. some of those children have underlying illnesses, some do not. other children are being admitted to the hospital for another medical reason, but we re testing children routinely, and there they are in the hospital and, oh, my gosh, they re positive. so we have kind of two streams coming in, children who need to be admitted for covid, children who need to be admitted for something else and suddenly found to have covid. their illnesses tend to be lease severe. the virus is multiplying