Opening Schools: COVID-19 Death Risk to Children is Quite Small

Tracy Davenport

Health

20th July 2020

Opening Schools: COVID-19 Death Risk to Children is Quite Small

Parents have been worried about the risk of infection for their children (Getty Images).

The Claim

Thousands of children will die from COVID-19 if we reopen schools this fall.

News posted on

Joshua Potash

Twitter

GrandmaCatie🇺🇸

Emerging story

As the debate rages on about whether or not to reopen schools in the fall and the risk to school children, some are suggesting on social media that if schools open, thousands of children will die from COVID-19.

Misbar’s Analysis

The risk to school age children of dying from the coronavirus is extremely small. According to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there have been only 31 deaths in six months from the coronavirus for children 14 and under. If that death rate remains relatively constant, then the projected deaths for children 14 and under would be approximately 60 this year. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 22 states have reported zero child deaths from COVID-19.

To put this in context, in 2018, almost 10 times that many children ages 10-14 died of suicide, over 350 children ages 1-4 died of homicide, and 71 children ages 5-9 died of influenza according to data from the American Council on Science and Health.

While rates of mortality are low, children still have the ability to contract and transmit Covid-19. In a recent study from South Korea, older children appear to be more likely to spread COVID-19 within a household than younger children and adults. The researchers traced and tested nearly 60,000 people and it was found that Covid-19 patients between the ages of 10 and 19 had the highest rate of transmission among the groups and children younger than 10 spread the virus at the lowest rate.