According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 0.1 percent to 1.9 percent of all coronavirus infections in young people require hospitalization. To be fair to those who believe, as early data has suggested, that around 45 percent of those hospitalizations were actually unlikely to be caused by Covid-19, and to account for the large number of undocumented infections that have already occurred, we could imagine the real hospitalization rate could be even lower, say as low as 0.02 percent, or one in 5,000 pediatric coronavirus infections.
That means that if the coronavirus were eventually to infect all 73 million children in the United States, we would conservatively expect Covid-19 to be responsible for around 14,600 hospitalizations. Unlike the vaccine-related hospitalizations, adolescent hospitalizations for Covid-19 can be punishing, with a quarter lasting six days or more. A recent C.D.C. study found that Covid-related hospitalizations in adolescents can be long and complicated, with nearly one-third requiring patients to enter the intensive care unit. So far, 326 Americans age 17 and younger have died of Covid-19.
The longer-term impact of Covid-19 on young people is unknown. But some children with Covid-19 develop a complication known as Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children.
Advertisement
Join the conversation as a VIP Member