Almost 13.2 million children in the US have been infected for Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, according to the latest report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association. For the week ending May 12, more than 93,000 additional child Covid-19 cases were reported, an increase of about 76 per cent from two weeks ago, Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying. Over 246,000 child Covid-19 cases have been added in the past four weeks.
Nearly 5.3 million child cases have been added in 2022, according to the report. This marks the fifth consecutive weekly increase in reported child cases in the US. 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, said the AAP. "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," said the AAP.