Children represent 9.8% of all COVID-19 cases in the US, where more than a total of 6.5 million cases have been reported, according to the organization. The total number of confirmed cases in US children is 513,415.
The AAP also reported that there were 70,630 new child cases between August 20 and September 3, which represents a 16% increase over that two-week time period. In all states reporting, 0.3% to 8.3% of child COVID-19 cases resulted in hospitalization, and 0% to 0.2% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death.
“At this time, it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is rare among children. However, states should continue to provide detailed reports on COVID-19 cases, testing, hospitalizations, and mortality by age and race/ethnicity so that the effects of COVID-19 on children’s health can be documented and monitored,” the AAP wrote in its update.
The AAP’s analysis is based on data from the health department websites of 49 states, in addition to those of New York City, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam.
The AAP’s analysis is not the only recent report regarding COVID-19 in children, as new research published Friday in The Lancet journal stated that the long-term effects of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a pediatric disease linked to the coronavirus, could be lethal.
MIS-C, which has affected almost 800 children in the US so far as of September 3, is similar to Kawasaki disease, which causes inflammation of blood vessels throughout the body and typically appears in children younger than 5 years old.
