As of November 18, almost 6.8 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic. This week nearly 142,000 child cases were added, an increase of about 32% from two weeks ago. Child cases have declined since a peak of 252,000 the week of September 2nd, but COVID cases among children remain extremely high. For the 15th week in a row child COVID-19 cases are above 100,000. Since the first week of September, there have been over 1.7 million additional child cases.
The age distribution of reported COVID-19 cases was provided on the health department websites of 49 states, New York City, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Since the pandemic began, children represented 16.9% of total cumulated cases. For the week ending November 18, children were 25.1% of reported weekly COVID-19 cases (children, under age 18, make up 22.2% of the US population).
A smaller subset of states reported on hospitalizations and mortality by age; the available data indicate that COVID-19-associated hospitalization and death is uncommon in children.
At this time, it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is uncommon among children. However, there is an urgent need to collect more data on longer-term impacts of the pandemic on children, including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.
Read the full article from the American Academy of Pediatrics.