The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is urging parents to get their teenagers vaccinated against COVID-19 after an alarming spike in hospitalizations among young coronavirus patients. About 24 percent of kids ages 12 to 17 have received at least one dose. Before most were eligible for the vaccine, about one-third of teens who were admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 wound up in the intensive care unit, according to the CDC. Nearly five percent of those cases were put on respirators. None of the patients died. CDC Director Rochelle Walenksy said she is “deeply concerned by the numbers of hospitalized adolescents.”
