With the school year in Alabama now underway, some are concerned as to how the Delta variant could impact the coming school-going population that is not eligible for the COVID-19 vaccines offered to the public.

During an appearance on APTV’s “Capitol Journal” on Friday, Dr. Don Williamson, the head of the Alabama Hospital Association, noted the rise of pediatric patients in hospitals, which he said was an indicator of the spread of the virus.

Williamson interpreted the current hospitalizations as evidence things were going “in a very bad direction.”

“Given our positivity rate, and today I think it is about 24% — I don’t see anything that leads me to believe this number is going to turn around any time soon,” he warned. “Yesterday, as you said, we had about 1,850 people in the hospital, about 500 of them in the ICU and about 250 on ventilators. I think the other thing — I think 37 of them were pediatric patients. Things are moving very quickly in a very bad direction.”

Williamson said he interpreted pediatric patients as a “marker of widespread and ongoing transmission,” which he said at 37 was a telling sign. He warned further transmission of the COVID virus could be forthcoming.

“I can’t see any way, given how infectious Delta variant is, that we’re not going to see school outbreaks,” he added. “And I worry a great deal because just talking to our hospitals, we’re seeing more children hospitalized with more serious illness now than we saw in January.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.