Reopening economies and sending kids back to school are fiery issues and we don’t want to add fuel to the flames. However, when the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) say child cases jumped 40% in late July, this merits noting. Moreover, we agree with Bloomberg when it says data concerning US covid-19 child cases pose questions But first, what are the reported facts?
Reasons Why US COVID-19 Child Cases Pose Questions
The American Academy of Pediatrics, in conjunction with Children’s Hospital Association report jointly as follows:
1… The cumulative number of child COVID cases was 338,982 at end July 2020, being 8.8% of the total
2… The 97,078 new child cases in the second half of the month represent a 40% increase over the first half
However the data is incomplete, because not all states reported on child testing, hospitalization, and deaths. Therefore the data regarding US COVID-19 child cases pose questions in our minds. Why is this information not available in standard format? Surely, it is in everybody’s interests to be able to compare across the nation.
The Risks Facing Children, and Therefore the General Population
We already know most children may experience COVID-19 as a walk in the park. However, the states that did report data, say 0.6% to 8.9% of child cases went to hospital. The death rate was thankfully very low, at between 0% to 3%.
However, the lack of age standardization muddies the water. That’s because age ranges varied from 0-14, 0-17, 0-18, 0-19, 0-20, and 0-24 years. We placed a link at the end of this post to the report by the AAP in conjunction with the CHA, if you would like to investigate further.
However, our brief overview does confirm U.S. states collect data inconsistently. On August 5, 2020 we described how children are potentially super virus spreaders. The US COVID-19 child cases pose questions more than answers because of loopholes in critical information. And this, we suggest requires attention.
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Under 20’s Half as Likely to Catch Covid-19
Preview Image: U.S. COVID-19 Child Cases
