Global data on the spread of the coronavirus pandemic shows that children and young people make up only 1-2% of cases of Covid-19 worldwide. The vast majority of reported infections in children are mild or asymptomatic, with few recorded deaths.
For this study, published in the BMJ medical journal, Semple's team looked at data from 651 babies and children under 19 who were hospitalised with Covid-19 between January 17 and July 3.
The six children who died all had “profound comorbidity”, the researchers said, and this was a “strikingly low” fatality rate compared with a 27% across all age groups — from 0-106 years — of Covid-19 patients hospitalised in the same period. While the overall risk of children getting severe Covid is “tiny”, the researchers said, children of Black ethnicity and those with obesity are disproportionately affected, as previous studies in adults have found.
The study also showed that children can have a cluster of symptoms including sore throat, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea and rash alongside already-recognised Covid-19 symptoms of fever, breathlessness and cough.
Reuters