MIS-C Cases In Children Have Jumped 12% Since August, CDC Says

New York Daily News: Children’s Hospitals See Disturbing Rise In MIS-C Cases 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released statistics of a disturbing trend on Thursday, highlighting the sharp rise in MIS-C cases in children who recently had COVID-19.According to the health agency, there has been a 12% increase in cases of the multisite, inflammatory syndrome in children since late August. At children’s hospitals across the country, many doctors are saying that they are treating more cases of the rare disease than ever before. (Sapienza, 10/8)

USA Today: Kids Testing Positive At Higher Rates Than Adults
While cases increased across all age groups in the latest wave of COVID, kids have been testing positive for COVID-19 more often than adults, adjusted for population. The increase is due to the highly contagious delta variant, relaxed restrictions and ineligibility for children under 12 to get vaccines. "Definitely over the last eight weeks we’ve seen dramatic increases in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in kids," said Dr. Donna Tyungu, a pediatric infectious disease physician at OU Health in Oklahoma City. "It started right when we started school." (Santucci, 10/9)

Detroit Free Press: 375 Kids Under 12 Are Catching Coronavirus Daily In Michigan, And It's Shutting Down Schools
Each day in the last week, more than 375 children younger than 12 were infected with the coronavirus in Michigan, a new state analysis shows. Coronavirus cases in K-12 schools accounted for 56% of all known new outbreaks statewide last week — more than in every other setting combined, according to state health department data. In all, new and ongoing outbreaks and clusters affected at least 104 schools, causing children to lose instruction time because of illness or quarantine. Each outbreak was estimated to affect as many as 87 students and school staff members. (Jordan Shamus, 10/8)

In other news about the spread of the coronavirus —

NBC News: Black Covid Patients Receive Fewer Medical Follow-Ups, Study Shows
Black Covid patients are less likely to receive medical follow-ups after being hospitalized and more likely to experience longer waits until they can return to work, according to a University of Michigan study published Tuesday. The study surveyed the health outcomes of 2,217 Covid patients in Michigan 60 days after hospitalization. The results found that more than 50 percent of patients of color were readmitted to the hospital within 60 days after being released. Patients of color were also more than 65 percent more likely to experience moderate to severe financial impact because of Covid-19. (Phillips, 10/8)

Bloomberg: Covid Hospitalizations Rise In Colorado Even With High Vaccination Rate
Covid-19 hospitalizations are rising again in Colorado even with more than 70% of those eligible in the state vaccinated, health officials said Friday. The recent daily average has been around 900 hospitalizations, one of the highest readings since the pandemic started in March 2020, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Two weeks ago, the average was running around 875. (Del Giudice, 10/8)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Delta Variant Blamed For Rapid Reinfection Of Nevada Man
The Nevada State Public Health Laboratory has identified a rare case of COVID-19 reinfection occurring just 22 days after the patient first tested positive. The patient, an unvaccinated 31-year-old Mineral County man with no underlying health conditions, first tested positive for the delta variant and then, three weeks later, for a different strain that evolved from the delta variant, Mark Pandori, director of the lab at the University of Nevada, Reno’s School of Medicine, told the Review-Journal this week. (Hynes, 10/8)

San Francisco Chronicle: Here's What Bay Area Doctors Say About How COVID Affects The Brain
While driving recently, Cliff Morrison suddenly found himself lost in a forest. He pulled over, looked around and realized he was actually on a tree-lined street half a mile from his home in the Oakland hills, heading to the post office. Morrison, 70, did not have dementia. He had COVID-19. Since his diagnosis in April 2020, Morrison, a health care administrator, has experienced a mysterious and mercifully brief loss of orientation four or five times, most recently around Labor Day, and always near home. It no longer frightens the bejeezus out of him. Now, he’s just curious. So are his doctors. (Asimov, 10/10)

Also —

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Hospitals Overcrowded With COVID, But Johnson Says It's Just Like Flu
Sen. Ron Johnson on Friday said hospital overcrowding in Wisconsin due to COVID-19 is no worse than what happens during "a bad flu season” — contrary to what data shows and what hospital workers and health care systems have been saying. Johnson, who is unvaccinated and had COVID-19 in 2020, made the comments at a town hall meeting in Boulder Junction, as reported by Wisconsin Public Radio. "Just because it happens with COVID doesn't mean there’s some massive crisis in terms of our health care system," he said. (Bentley, 10/9)

NBC News: What Would A Covid Memorial Look Like? Designers Share Ideas For 'Unprecedented' Tribute
There is no memorial to the estimated 675,000 people killed in the U.S. in the 1918 Influenza pandemic on the National Mall. But if there were, some think, the country would have done a better job handling Covid-19. "I think we could have been much better prepared had we been more culturally aware about what happened in 1918," said Spencer Bailey, the author of a recent book about memorials who has an unusually personal connection to memorials. "One of the reasons that we've found ourselves in our scrambled response to Covid is there are barely any memorials to the flu of 1918."Many now intend to make sure this pandemic doesn't get lost to history like the last one. While it will most likely be years before anyone builds a Covid memorial in Washington, architects, artists and people touched by the pandemic from around the world are already thinking about ways to remember it, which might require reinventing the idea of memorials. (Seitz-Wald, 10/11)