NEW YORK (AP) – Racial differences in the American coronavirus epidemic are spreading to children, according to two sobering government reports released Friday.
One of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports looked at children with COVID-19 who needed hospitalization. Spanish children were hospitalized eight times higher than white children, and Black children were hospitalized five times higher, it found.
The second report examined cases of a rare virus-associated syndrome in children. It found that about three-quarters of the children with the syndrome, whether Spanish or black, were well above their representation in the general population.
The coronavirus has exposed race fractures in the U.S. health care system because Black, Hispanic and Native Americans have been hospitalized and killed by COVID-19 at much higher rates than other groups.
Meanwhile, the impact of the virus on children has become a political issue. President Donald Trump and some other administration officials have been pushing schools to reopen, a step that would allow more parents to work back and take up the economy.
On Wednesday, Facebook deleted a post by Trump for violating its policy against spreading false information about the coronavirus. The post contained a link to a Fox News video in which Trump says children are “purely immune” to the virus.
The vast majority of coronavirus cases and deaths have been in adults, and children are considered less likely to have serious symptoms when they are infected.
Of the nearly 5 million cases reported in the U.S. as of Wednesday, about 265,000 were in children 17 and younger – about 5%. Of the more than 156,000 deaths reported at that time, 77 were children – about 0.05%.
But Friday’s CDC reports are a ‘gut punch’ reminder that some children become seriously ill and die, said Carrie Henning-Smith, a University of Minnesota researcher who focuses on differences in health.
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