By Ethan Covey

Although serious cases of COVID-19 primarily affect older adults, a recent CDC report on hospitalizations among adolescents 12 to 17 years of age shows that the potential for severe disease still exists for younger people.

The findings reinforce the importance of vaccinating adolescents now that the FDA has authorized use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds (MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2021;70[23]:851-857).

“This report highlights that, even though adults account for most of the severe COVID-19 illness in the U.S., teens can also experience severe outcomes,” said Fiona P. Havers, MD, an epidemiologist with the CDC COVID-19 Response Team.

The report focuses on data from the Coronavirus Disease 2019-Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network, which tracked COVID-19–associated hospitalizations among adolescents 12 to 17 years of age from Jan. 1 to March 31, 2021, and hospitalization rates per 100,000 persons among adolescents from March 1, 2020, through April 24, 2021.

Cumulatively, COVID-19 hospitalizations for adolescents are far lower than among adults, with 1,969 hospitalizations to date during the pandemic among 5- to 17-year-olds compared with 81,403 among adults 65 and older.

However, among adolescents 12 to 17 years of age, 204 hospitalizations occurred from January through April 2021, most of them in March and April. Nearly one-third (31.4%) of these cases resulted in ICU admission, and 5% required mechanical ventilation.

The epidemiologists noted that a number of potential factors may have caused the rise, including the spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants, returns to in-person schooling or other social activities, and changes in distancing and other disease mitigation efforts.

Overall, the message is clear: Although the risk to younger people remains small, it is not nonexistent, they said.

“Many people have it in their minds that young people don’t get COVID-19 and that, if they do, they don’t get very sick,” Dr. Havers said. “Even though most people who get very ill are older, adolescents can and do face severe outcomes if they get COVID-19. Now that everyone 12 and older is eligible to get vaccinated, people should take advantage of that.”