FACT CHECK

CDC Director Corrects Sonia Sotomayor Claim That 100,000 Kids in ‘Serious Condition’ With COVID-19

On a Fox News Sunday segment, the Biden official confirmed that the claim made during oral arguments over vaccine mandates were extremely exaggerated.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Sunday corrected claims made by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said Friday that “we have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators.” Walensky explained on a segment of Fox News Sunday that though pediatric hospitalizations have been rising, numbers are still “about 15-fold less” than for older age groups. As of Jan. 8, about 5,000 US children were hospitalized and confirmed or believed to be coronavirus positive, and according to Walensky, most of them were unvaccinated and/or had underlying conditions. Sotomayor made the misleading claim during oral arguments over challenges to vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden administration.