More than 97,000 children in the US tested positive for coronavirus in the last two weeks of July, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.
Data revealed a 40% increase in child cases across the states and cities that were investigated. The age range for children who tested positive for coronavirus differed by state. Some reported only those up to age 14 while Alabama pushed the limit to 24.
The report's findings come during the reopening of schools and while health authorities are still determining the effects of the coronavirus on children and the role young people play in spreading the infection. Some schools have started physical classes and others have had to roll back their reopening plans in response to increasing Covid-19 cases.
One study revealed that older children can pass the virus just as much as adults. Another study showed that children younger than 5 carry a higher viral load than adults.
A new report disclosed that at least 86 children have passed away since May. Last week, a 7-year-old boy without pre-existing health conditions became the youngest Covid-19 victim in Georgia. Moreover, two teenagers died earlier this month in Florida, making the state's death toll of minors seven.
Meanwhile, Black and Hispanic children are impacted more severely with higher rates of hospitalizations, infections, and coronavirus-related issues, according to recently published research.
"Not much impact on children"
President Donald Trump said last week that coronavirus does not have much of an impact on children as he pushed for the reopening of schools in the fall. He also expressed his confidence that the coronavirus will “go away.”
“It’s going away. It’ll go away. Things go away. No question in my mind that it will go away,” Trump said during a White House press briefing.
Trump lauded the coronavirus vaccine and therapeutic development in the country. He mentioned its “tremendous success,” and he claims the country is “ready to deliver them literally as soon” once they have been approved.
In the same day, Johnson and Johnson announced that the US will purchase 100 million doses of its potential vaccine. The company joins several other companies that have signed similar deals with the US government.
The president also called for the reopening of schools in the fall, claiming most of them will. In terms of the coronavirus, he said children can “throw it off very easily.”
“They may get it, but they get it and it doesn’t have much of an impact on them,” he said. “For whatever reason the China virus, children handle it very well.”
Trump’s remarks come after his interview with Fox News earlier in the day where he said the virus “go away like things go away” and reiterated that children are “virtually immune” to coronavirus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned young people about spreading the virus before.
The nation’s leading infectious disease expert emphasized that “more and more” complications with Covid-19 in young people are being recorded by doctors and infectious disease specialists.
“You have to have responsibility for yourself but also a societal responsibility that you’re getting infected is not just you in a vacuum. You’re propagating the pandemic,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an interview.
