Yesterday, I blasted the fearmongering complex of government and media that is trying to make the reality of a bad disease even worse by exaggerating the risks we face. 

Now, they're doing it to children in order to browbeat parents to get kids as young as five vaccinated.  Leftist teachers' unions and big city mayors are once again using Omicron as the excuse, and they're edging back toward remote learning. 

NBC News kicked off the latest round of "panic porn" with a report yesterday suggesting there has been a massive increase in children admitted to hospitals around the country.  ABC News is jumping on the bandwagon today with this headline:  "U.S. Children Hospitalized With COVID In Near-Record Numbers."

Exactly what are these "near-record numbers"?  According to NBC News, children hospitalized with COVID jumped 52% from 1,270 to 1,933. 

Now, here's some desperately needed perspective.

We're not talking about 1,933 children in New York City.  Or 1,933 children in California.  We're talking about 1,933 children in the entire country, and there are more than 70 million children in America. 

If you do the math, that gives you an approximate hospitalization rate of 0.00000026.  So, when NBC says hospitalizations have increased by 52%, that tells you almost nothing. 

But did you notice the phrase "hospitalized with COVID"?  Why didn't they say "hospitalized because of COVID"?  Well, I suspect that number would be even more insignificant. 

That's because the CDC now requires anyone being admitted to a hospital for any reason to be tested for COVID.  So, if you're child falls and hits his head, and is admitted for a concussion, he will be tested for COVID.  If he tests positive, he will be admitted with COVID, not because of COVID – and that's a very different thing. 

Deep into the NBC News article, a top medical official at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia explains:  "We test anybody who's admitted to the hospital for whatever reason. . .  However, we're really not seeing an increase in children who are hospitalized for COVID or in the intensive care unit for COVID."

That fact should have resulted in the entire story being spiked as it essentially disproves the headline.  This is another egregious example of media misinformation and malfeasance. 

I can only conclude that this deliberate manipulation of words is an intentional effort to stoke great fear in order to browbeat parents into getting their children vaccinated.

Just to be clear, children with severe health problems are at risk from COVID, and all appropriate precautions for those children should be considered.  But the average, healthy child faces virtually no risk from COVID. 

Dr. Marty Makary of Johns Hopkins University studied the records of 48,000 children diagnosed with COVID.  He couldn't find one child who died from COVID who didn't already have a serious preexisting condition.  A similar study in Germany found the exact same thing – healthy children face zero risk of death from COVID.