Covid-19 is the leading cause of death for children in the US

Covid-19 has become the eighth most common cause of death among children in the United States, according to a study published on Monday (30).

Children are significantly less likely to die from Covid-19 than any other age group — less than 1% of all deaths since the start of the pandemic have occurred among those under 18, according to federal data.

But it’s rare for children to die for any reason, the researchers wrote, so the burden of Covid-19 is best understood in the context of other pediatric deaths.

Covid-19 has been the third leading cause of death in the general population.

“Pediatric deaths are rare by any measure. It’s something we didn’t expect to happen and it’s a tragedy in its own unique way. It’s a really profound event,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases.

“Everyone knows that Covid is more severe in the elderly and immunocompromised and less severe in children, but this does not mean that it is a benign disease in children. Just because the numbers are much lower in children doesn’t mean they aren’t impactful.”

In 2019, the last year before the pandemic, the leading causes of death among children and youth aged 0-19 years included perinatal conditions, unintentional injuries, malformations or birth defects, aggression, suicide, malignant neoplasms, heart disease and influenza and pneumonia .

Analysis of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data found that there were 821 deaths from Covid-19 in this age group during a 12-month period from August 2021 to July 2022.

This death rate – around 1 per 100,000 children aged 0-19 – ranks eighth compared to 2019 data. It ranks fifth among 15- to 19-year-olds.

Covid-19 deaths displace influenza and pneumonia, making it the leading cause of death from any infectious or respiratory illness.

It caused “substantially” more deaths than any vaccine-preventable disease historically, the researchers wrote.

According to CDC data, children are less vaccinated against Covid-19 than any other age group in the US.

Less than 10% of eligible children received the updated booster vaccine and more than 90% of children under 5 years of age were not fully vaccinated.

“If we looked at all the other leading causes of death — whether it was motor vehicle accidents or childhood cancer — and said, ‘Wow, if we had something simple and safe that we could do to get rid of one of those, wouldn’t we just go jump?’ And we have that with Covid with vaccines,” said O’Leary, who is also a professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Colorado.

A CDC survey of blood samples suggests that more than 90% of children have had Covid-19 at least once.

There is uncertainty about exactly how much risk the virus will continue to pose, O’Leary said, but the potential benefits of vaccination clearly outweigh any potential risks.

“Vaccination is clearly our best option right now,” and the benefits clearly outweigh the risks, he said. “Better safe than sorry”.

Findings from the new study, published in JAMA Network Open, may underestimate the mortality burden of Covid-19 because the analysis focuses on deaths where Covid-19 was an underlying cause of death, but not those where it may have been. a contributing factor, the researchers wrote.

Furthermore, other analyzes of excess deaths suggest that deaths from Covid-19 have been underreported.

As Covid-19 continues to spread in the U.S., researchers say interventional methods such as vaccination and ventilation “will continue to play an important role in limiting transmission of the virus and mitigating serious illness.”