Cleveland Clinic News Service - Research is shedding some light on how COVID-19 impacts children.
Data suggest the disease is relatively mild for many kids, especially those under the age of ten. “That was one of the really interesting things about the report is that the younger children, less than ten, actually fared very, very well, and only about 30% of the total number of deaths that we saw in children, were in children less than ten,” said Camille Sabella, MD, Director of the Center for Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Cleveland Clinic Children’s, who was not involved in the report.
Dr. Sabella said the analysis also revealed that many of the children who died from COVID-19 had at least one underlying medical condition, like asthma or obesity.
He adds that doctors are still trying to understand why kids, in general, do better with coronavirus. He said there are some theories, but nothing has been proven just yet. In the meantime, he encourages everyone to continue taking precautions.
“All the things that we are doing to protect ourselves against COVID-19 will hopefully also help us protect against flu,” said Dr. Sabella. “The one exception is that we do currently have a flu vaccine and I really encourage all children six months of age or older to get the flu shot.”
Complete results can be found in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.