While American children have been mostly spared as the coronavirus outbreak has spread across the nation, they’ve not been so lucky when it comes to the flu.
As of Monday afternoon, of the more than 4,100 coroanvirus cases confirmed in the US, a very small percentage is children. Of the 71 deaths, none have been among children.
But of the 22,000 have died of the flu so far this season, 144 have been children, according to new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
This means there have been as many pediatric deaths with the season not being over as there were all of last year.
So far in the 2019-20 influenza season, 144 children in the US have died of the flu – as many as died last year (file image(
More children have died at this point in the season than during the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic, Pictured: Pediatric flu death for every season from 2016 to 2020
By comparison, most kids not contract coronavirus and, when they do, they are not susceptible like most adults are. Pictured: A patient arrives at the Nebraska Medical Center Biocontainment Unit in 2015
According to the CDC’s latest flu report, the 144 children’s deaths is the highest on record since the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic.
Last year, at this point in the season, there were xx deaths.
Additionally as of March 7, the hospitalization rate for children under age four was the highest ever recorded at this point this season – even more than the 2009 season.
Dr Robert Glatter, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital, told DailyMail.com that one reason for the spike in child deaths is influenza B is more common this season than influenza A.
Worldwide, more than 173,000 people have been infected and more than 6,000 have died
‘Children are at higher risk this flu season primarily due to a greater susceptibility to influenza B, the dominant strain we are seeing so far,’ he said in an interview earlier this year.
‘Compared to influenza A, Influenza B is a more stable type of flu, not undergoing much change from prior years. As a result, a large number of adults are immune from previous exposure.
‘As a result, it’s children and teens who are most at risk.’
The CDC also says that hospitalization rates for children between ages five and 17 is higher than most recent flu seasons.
However, despite the devastating effect the flu can have on children, the oppose seems to be true for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.
While children can contract the new virus, few are experiencing severe cases.
In a new study published in Nature Medicine, Chinese researchers screened 745 children between two months and 15 years old suspected of being infected.
Of those children, only about 1.3 percent had coronavirus.
According to one study out of China, the rate of children infected with coronavirus was about 1.3 percent. Pictured: Medical staff wait for patients at a coronavirus testing center outside at University Hospitals in Ohio, March 16,
Nurses check registration lists before swabbing patients for coronavirus at the University of Washington Medical center on March 13
What’s more, of 10 children examined who had the virus, seven had symptoms – such as fever and coughing – but none had muscle aches or pneumonia, which is seen all the severe adult cases.
Health experts are not sure why children don’t seem to be nearly as susceptible as adults are to coronavirus.
One theory is that because the new virus is in the same family as the virus responsible for the common cold, adolescents have built up immunity.
Children could ‘develop antibodies from other viruses, that their bodies already are at a heightened immune state.’ Dr Evelyn Montalvo Stanton, chair of pediatrics at the UNLV School of Medicine, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Worldwide, more than 173,000 people in more than 130 countries have been infected and more than 6,000 have died.