U.S. CDC director urges teens to get vaccinated after hospitalizations rise

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director urged teenagers to get vaccinated, as new data from the agency’s researchers showed one in three teenagers who were hospitalized due to COVID-19 early this year needed ICU admission.

"I am deeply concerned by the numbers of hospitalized adolescents and saddened to see the number of adolescents who required treatment in intensive care units or mechanical ventilation," CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a statement on Friday.

The rate of hospitalization due to COVID-19 increased among adolescents aged 12 to 17 in April to 1.3 per 100,000 people from a lower rate in mid-March, the CDC said in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-cdc-director-urges-teens-get-vaccinated-after-hospitalizations-rise-2021-06-04/