A survey of the latest data, compiled by the Alliance for Natural Health USA, should provide some comfort to worried parents about the risks faced by children.
To what extent are our children endangered by COVID infection?
Many parents understandably approached this school year with trepidation at the thought of their children returning to in-person learning during a pandemic and the rise of viral variants.
A survey of the data we have thus far should provide some comfort to worried parents about the risks faced by children.
First, deaths from COVID among children are very rare. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there have been 63 deaths from COVID in kids aged 1-4 and 172 deaths in kids aged 5-15.
For all ages, there have been 723,880 deaths from COVID.
This means that kids aged 1-4 make up 0.008703% of COVID deaths, and kids 5-15 make up 0.0238% of total COVID deaths.
Hospitalization rates are also much lower for younger age groups. According to the CDC, there were 87.8 hospitalizations per 100,000 people for those aged 0-4, and 52.5 hospitalizations per 100,000 people for those aged 5-15.
For comparison, there were 2,000 hospitalizations per 100,000 for those 65 and older, and 1,033 hospitalizations per 100,000 for those aged 50-64. Kids aged 0-4 make up 0.7% of total hospitalizations, and kids aged 5-17 make up 1.1% of total hospitalizations.
Even these low numbers of hospitalizations for kids may be overstated. The CDC requires that every child admitted to the hospital be tested for COVID-19. According to one study, 45% of the time, a child who tested positive for the coronavirus at a hospital was not actually sick with COVID-19. In those cases, hospitalization was due to a completely unrelated diagnosis.
These data have been confirmed in other parts of the world. Studies in England found that COVID-19 carries a lower risk of death or intensive care among children and young people than previously thought.
Researchers found that COVID caused 25 deaths in England among those 18 and younger and that half of these were in individuals with an underlying complex disability requiring high health-care needs, such as tube feeding or breathing assistance.
One study looked at data from 19 countries and found that conditions such as obesity and cardiac or neurological problems were associated with a higher risk of death or intensive care treatment, but the absolute increase in risk was very small.
The data also seem to suggest that many children get infected with the virus but are…
Read full story [icon name=”arrow-right” prefix=”fas”] How Dangerous is COVID for Children? • Children’s Health Defense
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