State-level reports are the best publicly available and timely data on child COVID-19 cases in the United States. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association are collaborating to collect and share all publicly available data from states on child COVID-19 cases. The definition of “child” case is based on varying age ranges reported across states (see report Appendix for details and links to all data sources).

Reported child COVID-19 cases among children have spiked dramatically across the United States. The past week nearly 1 million cases were reported, four times the rate of the peak of last winters’ surge. For the week ending January 13th, over 981,000 child COVID-19 cases were reported. This number is a 69% increase over the 580,000 added cases reported the week ending January 6th and a tripling of case counts from the two weeks prior.

Nearly 9.5 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic;  10% of these cases have been added in the past week. For the 23rd week in a row child COVID-19 cases are above 100,000. Since the first week of September, there have been over 4.4 million additional child cases.

The age distribution of reported COVID-19 cases was provided on the health department websites of 49 states, New York City, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Since the pandemic began, children represented 17.8% of total cumulated cases. For the week ending January 13, children were 21.4% of reported weekly COVID-19 cases (children, under age 18, make up 22.2% of the US population). A smaller subset of states reported on hospitalizations and mortality by age. There is an urgent need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects. It is important to recognize there are immediate effects of the pandemic on children’s health, but importantly we need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth.

Summary of Findings (data available as of 1/13/22) :

Cumulative Number of Child COVID-19 Cases*

  • 9,452,491 total child COVID-19 cases reported, and children represented 17.8% (9,452,491/53,230,820) of all cases
  • Overall rate: 12,559 cases per 100,000 children in the population

Change in Child COVID-19 Cases*

  • 981,488 child COVID-19 cases were reported the past week from 1/6/22-1/13/22 (8,471,003 to 9,452,491) and children represented 21.4% (981,488/4,589,630) of the weekly reported cases
  • Over two weeks, 12/30/21-1/13/22, there was a 20% increase in the cumulated number of child COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic (1,561,735 cases added (7,890,756 to 9,452,491))

Cumulative Hospitalizations (24 states and NYC reported)*

  • Among states reporting, children ranged from 1.7%-4.4% of their total cumulated hospitalizations, and 0.1%-1.5% of all their child COVID-19 cases resulted in hospitalization

Cumulative Mortality (46 states, NYC, PR and GU reported)*

  • Among states reporting, children were 0.00%-0.26% of all COVID-19 deaths, and 4 states reported zero child deaths
  • ​In states reporting, 0.00%-0.02% of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death

* Note: The numbers in this summary represent cumulative counts since states began reporting. In this summary and full report, the data are based on how public agencies collect, categorize and post information. All data reported by state/local health departments are preliminary and subject to change and reporting may change over time. Notably, in the summer of 2021, some states have revised cases counts previously reported, begun reporting less frequently, or dropped metrics previously reported. For example, due to several changes on their dashboards and the data currently available, AL, NE, and TX data in this report are not current (cumulative data through 7/29/21, 6/24/21, and 8/26/21 respectively).

^ As of 11/11/21, we are no longer reporting testing data due to the low number of states reporting. During holiday weeks states may change their reporting schedules which may cause irregularities in trends. Shortages of COVID-19 tests in some areas during the Omicron surge and the use of COVID-19 home tests likely affect the undercounting of child COVID-19 cases.

Readers should consider these factors. States may have additional information on their web sites.

On Hospitalizations: For additional data and trends over time from the CDC on US child hospitalizations in all states, visit https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#new-hospital-admissions 

On Mortality: For additional data on US child mortality from the CDC, visit https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics 

Download Full Report (1/13/2022)

Download Full Report (1/6/2022)

Download Full Report (12/30/2021)

Additional Information

Last Updated

01/18/2022

Source

American Academy of Pediatrics