Friday during oral arguments at the Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor claimed falsely that “We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, many on ventilators,” from the coronavirus.
In fact, as the Washington Post clarified on Friday, the number is just over 4,000, as of Wednesday. “The tally, which includes confirmed as well as suspected pediatric covid-19 patients, reflects a steep rise in infections in that group. Less than two weeks ago, on Christmas, fewer than 2,000 children were in hospitals with covid. The seven-day average of pediatric hospitalizations was slightly lower at 3,713.”
Fox News reported that most of the cases involving children who have been hospitalized are “incidental.” Even the CDC reports that mechanically-assisted ventilation is generally required in fewer than 20% of cases among patients admitted to hospital.
Sotomayor also falsely claimed that the omicron variant, the dominant strain in the current surge, is more “deadly” than the delta variant that was more common in the summer and the fall of 2021.
But leftists like Sotomayor don’t traffic in inconvenient facts.