Politifact Rates Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Wildly Inflated Child Covid Claim as FALSE

During oral arguments on President Joe Biden‘s vaccine mandate on Thursday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor cited a shocking statistic on the number of children in the United States who are in “serious condition,” to include being “on ventilators” due to covid. It was not just shocking, it turns out, it wasn’t even true.

“We have hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people severely ill on ventilators. We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators,” said the Supreme Court Justice during the hearing.

During those oral arguments on the mandate, Sotomayor compared humans “spewing virus” to machines “spewing sparks.” She offered the numbers specifically as a rationale for the Biden administration’s employer vaccine mandate. But this number was false. Wildly false.

Politifact rated it as such in an article on Friday, writing that “Her claim is not supported by data.”

The actual numbers are about 5% of the enormous number that Sotomayor claimed – a claim which was shared widely on social media without fact check.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, Politifact noted, specifically points out that “it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is uncommon among children.”

Additionally, while the number of children in hospitals who are positive for covid has risen with the advent of omicron, the Associated Press and other outlets have reported that this does not necessarily mean hospitalized for covid.

“Most of the COVID-positive kids in the hospital are actually not here for COVID-19 disease,” Seattle Children’s Hospital critical care chief Dr. John McGuire told the AP. “They are here for other issues but happen to have tested positive.”

“While the number of coronavirus-positive pediatric hospitalizations has risen with the spread of the omicron variant, Sotomayor’s number was way off,” Politifact wrote in their ruling. “We rate the statement False.”

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