Banner Health sees rise in kids hospitalized with COVID-19

(KYMA, KECY) - Banner Health shows nearly 800 kids have been hospitalized due to COVID-19 since October 2020.

AzFamily reports hundreds of kids are hospitalized with COVID each month, and that number keeps rising.

Although Banner Health says all pediatric patients can recover and be discharged, it tends to see mild symptoms in children. They add that it concerns and most likely due to the COVID-19 population being so high in the community.

For some children, it's a long recovery.

Dr, David Moromisato, Banner Desert Medical Center Chief Medica Officer says, "It's a long recovery for many of them, and on occasion, they will die from it. They're getting hospitalized with a pretty severe illness. Some of them are going into the pediatric intensive care unit. They're ending up on ventilators."

According to a study conducted by the Journal of the American Medical Association, Arizona had the worst capita rate of pediatric hospitalizations.