Death due to COVID-19 in children very low, UK study finds

The three studies, which were published on the pre-print server medRxiv, did not examine the effects of long COVID. According to one study, from the first year of the pandemic until the end of February 2021, 251 young people under the age of 18 in England were admitted to intensive care with COVID-19. According to the researchers, young people in England of that age group have a one in 47,903 chance of contracting SARS-CoV-2 and being admitted to intensive care with COVID-19 during that time.

The researchers also discovered that 309 children were admitted to intensive care with PIMS-TS, a rare inflammatory syndrome in children caused by COVID-19, with an absolute risk of one in 38,911. Another study based on data from England found that 25 children and teenagers died as a result of COVID-19, equating to an absolute risk of death from the disease of one in 481,000, or roughly two in a million.

Professor Russel Viner of UCL, senior author on two of the studies, stated, ‘These new studies show that the risks of severe illness or death from SARS-CoV-2 are extremely low in children and young people.’ These young people with a higher risk are also more susceptible to any winter virus or other illness, according to the researchers, who are young people with multiple health conditions and complex disabilities. COVID-19, on the other hand, raises the risks for these people to a greater extent than illnesses like influenza (seasonal flu),’ Viner said.

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These findings, according to the researchers, are significant because they will inform guidance for young people as well as vaccination decisions for teenagers and children not only in the UK but around the world. ‘Factors associated with a higher risk of severe COVID-19 appear to be broadly consistent in both children and adults,’ said UCL study lead author Joseph Ward.

‘Our research found that young people of African-American ethnicity, as well as those with diabetes, asthma, and cardiovascular disease, have a higher risk of being admitted to intensive care,’ Ward added. Young people with multiple conditions were found to be at the greatest risk, according to the researchers.

They said these conditions were also risk factors for other illnesses that led to intensive care admission, but to a lesser extent than COVID-19. The third study looked at 55 research papers and found risk factors that were similar to the other two studies.