US reports over 10,000 weekly child Covid cases

More than 10,000 child Covid-19 cases were reported in the US in the week ending on April 27, according to the latest report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association. Almost 15.6 million children have been reported to have tested positive for the virus since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying. Over the past seven months, weekly reported child cases have plateaued at an average of about 27,000 cases, while in the past four weeks the average reported weekly cases have dropped further to about 10,000, according to the report. Reported cases are likely a “substantial undercount” of Covid-19 cases among children, it added. There is a need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects, said the report. It is important to recognise there are immediate effects of the pandemic on children’s health, but importantly there is the need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth, said the AAP.