As more and more Americans receive the COVID-19 vaccine, infection rates remain stubbornly high and children, those too young for the vaccine, are accounting for more and more of those patients.
New data from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows children, those 18 and younger, account for 22.4% of new COVID-19 infections in the last week of April. The previous week, ending April 22, children made up 20.9% of new COVID-19 infections.
Overall, more than 3.7 million children have been reported to have contracted COVID-19 and represent 13.8% of the more than 32 million Americans who have been infected
Six states reported 18% or more of all their COVID-19 cases were children; Vermont, Alaska, South Carolina, Tennessee, New Mexico and Minnesota.
During the last week of April, Michigan, Maine and Puerto Rico saw the biggest week-to-week increase in child COVID-19 cases, upward of 10%.
The AAP’s data shows children still make up a small number of COVID-19 patients who suffer severe symptoms or death, however it does happen.
They report between 0.1 and 1.9% of all child COVID-19 cases result in hospitalization and between 0.0 and 0.03% of all child COVID-19 cases result in death.