It's time to admit it: The early days of the pandemic, when we could still comfort ourselves with the notion that kids were mysteriously "immune" to the coronavirus, are long gone. According to a joint report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association, 97,000 American children tested positive for COVID-19 in the last two weeks of July. And that's just the latest research to highlight increasingly sobering evidence that children are not spared from the clutches of the respiratory infection. (In fact, they even may be helping to spread it.)
The report was released on Friday, just days after many school districts around the nation reopened for in-person classes.
And considering the survey's findings, the debate over returning to school is getting even more heated (if that's even possible).
According to report, there was a 40% increase in pediatric coronavirus cases across the states and cities that were studied. In total, 49 states were included in the research, which was based on publicly reported data. New York City, DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam also provided data.
The report also gave one of the first snapshots we've seen about just how many children have been diagnosed with the virus since the pandemic began.
To date, there have been 338,982 confirmed child COVID-19 cases reported in the US.
That translates to about 447 cases per 100,000 children in the population. Or, another way to look at it, is that kids represent 8.8% of all cases. (As of this date, the US has reported 5.05 million cases and just over 162,000 deaths.)
The number of pediatric deaths is even smaller: Since May, there have been 86 deaths reported nationwide, according to the report. The latest took place just last week, after a 7-year-old boy died from the virus in Georgia. So far, the youngest known victim was an infant from Chicago.
While the number of pediatric cases might seem relatively small, it's actually pretty significant.
Experts do say that kids are less likely to develop severe cases of the virus, but other research has raised questions about how much they facilitate in spreading it.
In fact, on late July, a large-scale study conducted in South Korea found that older children may help spread the coronavirus just as much as adults do, regardless of whether or not they have symptoms.
"I fear that there has been this sense that kids just won't get infected or don't get infected in the same way as adults and that, therefore, they're almost like a bubbled population," Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota, told The New York Times.
Some critics have said it's this misconception that's led many camps and schools to reopen too soon.
And, in many cases, we've already watched how this can lead to widespread outbreaks.
Just take the Georgia summer camp that opened in mid-June, only to close again within days after at least 260 campers and staff members tested positive for COVID-19. A CDC report later found that while the camp had adhered to some recommended health and safety guidelines, it had ignored others. (For instance, staffers were required to wear masks at all times, but campers were not.)
Last week, several Georgia school districts reopened -- and quickly closed -- after reports of outbreaks.
At North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia, student Hanna Watters snapped a now-infamous photo from a crowded hallway on the first day of school. The image, which featured dozens of students walking shoulder-to-shoulder and only a scant few wearing face masks, quickly went viral. (North Paulding is "mask-optional," school administrators later shared.)
By the end of the week, the entire high school was forced to go virtual for "at least a couple days" after it was revealed that a half-dozen students and three staffers tested positive for the virus.
An outbreak at Sixes Elementary School, also in Georgia, made headlines last week, as well.
On the second day of in-person classes, a report that one student had tested positive for COVID-19 led the school to quarantine an entire classroom. There's no word yet on whether students and staff in other classrooms were affected.
It's not just happening here in the US, though. Reports out of Israel have found that a single student with the coronavirus infected 25 teachers after a school reopened.
If that doesn't underscore just how highly contagious this virus is, I don't know what will.
And yet, many areas of the country are still moving full-speed ahead with reopening in-person classes.
Of course, in many states, regional virus rates are being taken into account first.
For instance, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last week that all schools in New York state would be permitted to open for in-person classes, if they so choose.
"Today is the deadline to look at the infection rates and make a determination," Cuomo announced last Friday. "By our infection rates, all school districts can open everywhere in the state. Every region is below the threshold that we established."
As of last Thursday, the state is reporting a 1% positivity rate, which is pretty incredible considering it was the epicenter of the virus just a few months ago. In New York City, which initially bore the brunt of the pandemic, there have been several days in the last month or so where no new virus deaths have been reported.
There are still a lot of unknowns in terms of how this virus affects children.
For one thing, children often do not seem to display severe symptoms, and in many cases are believed to be asymptomatic. This is part of why they are under-tested, which means the true pediatric case count could be much higher than we'll ever know.
As such, the reporting is limited. And, it should be noted, even this study presents a bit of murkiness, because of how each state defined the age-range of children. (For example, Alabama defined "children" as anyone who tested under the age of 24, whereas other states defined them as anyone 14 or younger.)
In other words: there could be more new pediatric COVID-19 cases out there, or fewer. But the point is, they do exist, and they are clearly rising rapidly. For many, that that may just impact their decision to go back to school, or stick to remote learning until things get better. Either way, it's safe to say the Fall 2020-21 school year is shaping up to look like nothing we've ever seen before.
