CDC Director Rochelle Walensky contradicted Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s incorrect claim that there are 100,000 pediatric COVID hospitalizations on Sunday.
Justice Sotomayor, a liberal Associate Justice appointed by former president Obama, exaggerated the number of severe COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations among children as she attempted to convince conservative Supreme Court justices that President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for businesses should be enforced.
‘We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators,’ Sotomayor said on Friday.
‘The number is not 100,000. It’s roughly 3500 in hospitals now?’ asked host Bret Baier.
‘Yes. In fact, what I will say is, while pediatric hospitalizations are rising, they’re still about 15 fold less than hospitalizations of our older age or age demographic,’ Walinsky answered.
Sotomayor’s egregious miscalculation – which can be easily debunked with data reported by the CDC – follows her overly-cautious response to the pandemic, with her choosing to join Friday’s hearing virtually.
As of January 8, the number of hospitalization in children in the US is roughly 5,000, while the number of such hospitalizations has not surpassed the 84,000 cumulative since August, 2020.
In the US, COVID-19 deaths are declining, even as Omicron cases have jumped to staggering numbers. The country currently reports more than 59.8 million infections, while the seven-day average for deaths is at just above 1,500 – a decrease from September.
While pediatric hospitalizations for COVID-19 in the US have reached the highest case count ever reported since the start of the pandemic, the Associate Justice’s false claim exaggerated figures more than 20 times.
Walensky also added that the vast majority of children hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, and often present underlying conditions such as obesity.
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She added that the CDC will provide data on ‘how many of the 836,000 deaths in the US linked to COVID are from COVID and how many are with COVID.’
Nearly 7.9 million American children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, or more than 1 in 10.
For the week ending December 30, more than 325,000 children were diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, a 64percent increase compared to the week prior.
Children were 0.00percent – 0.27percent of COVID-19 deaths. About 600 Americans under the age of 18 have died of COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic.
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On Friday, Conservative justices on the US Supreme Court questioned the legality of President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for businesses as the nation’s highest court considered a request by Republican officials and business groups to block the policy even as COVID-19 cases grip the nation.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor spotted an apparent contradiction in Ohio Solicitor General Benjamin Flowers case when he said states may be entitled to impose mandates on businesses.
Flowers participated in the meeting remotely after testing positive for COVID-19, adding that his symptoms were ‘exceptionally mild.’
He said he was double-vaccinated and had received a booster.
‘Vaccines do not appear to be very effective in stopping the spread or transmission,’ he said, but added that they do help prevent severe cases.
Sotomayor proceeded to add that Omicron was as deadly as Delta, despite preliminary findings by scientists that that is not quite the case.
‘Omicron is as deadly as delta and causes as much serious disease in the unvaccinated as delta did,’ Sotomayor, who has served in the court since 2009, said on Friday.
‘The numbers—look at the hospitalization rates going up. We have more infected people today than we did a year ago in January. We have hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people severely ill on ventilators. We have over 1… (Read more)
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