Mike Stobbe, of the Associated Press
Published Friday, August 7, 2020 2:48 PM EDT
Last Updated on Friday, 07 August 2020 16:33 EDT
NEW YORK – Racial differences in the U.S. 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.
“It is clear from these studies, and from other emerging studies, that children are not immune,” she said. “Children can pass COVID, and they can also have its effects.”
She said research community leaders should pause over opening schools. ‘We have to be really, really careful. We are talking about potentially putting children in unsafe situations, ”said Henning-Smith.
Chantel Salas, a Spanish girl from the farm town of Immokalee, Florida, spent more than 50 days in hospital with COVID-19. The 17-year-old had only fallen ill for days when she took a photo with her diploma before graduating from high school.
At one point, her 41-year-old mother, Erika Juarez, was told to say goodbye to her only daughter.
“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever had to go through,” said Juarez, who works at a shipping warehouse. ‘She had no oxygen in her body. This thing affected all the organs in her body. ”
Juarez said Salas did not have any underlying health conditions and she is not yet sure how she became infected because no one in her household became ill. The toe was eventually put on a machine that added oxygen to blood before pumping it back into the body, a final attempt to save her life. She was fired about three weeks ago and is now back home.
“They keep saying she’s a miracle,” she said. “She came back quickly because she was very motivated.”
The first CDC report released Friday was based on cases from 14 states. The researchers counted 576 hospitalizations of children from March 1 to July 25. At least 12 were sick enough to need a machine to breathe. One died.
The hospital level for Spanish children was about 16.4 per 100,000. The rate for Black children was 10.5 per 100,000, and for white children it was 2.1 per 100,000.
As with adults, many of the hospital children had pre-existing health problems, including obesity, chronic lung conditions and – in the case of infants – premature births.
A number of possible factors could explain the differences, said Drs. Cyrus Shahpar, who oversees epidemic prevention efforts for a not-for-profit data and advocacy organization called Vital Strategies.
Larger percentages of Hispanic and Black children are allowed to go to the hospital care rooms when they are ill, which could be driven by difficulties in – or paying for – visiting doctor wards. That lack of access to regular health care could lead to more serious illness, he suggested.
The second CDC report focused on 570 children diagnosed with a rare condition, which CDC calls multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, as MIS-C. Ten of them died.
Some children with the syndrome have symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease, another rare childhood condition that can cause swelling and heart problems. Other symptoms include fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes or feeling extra tired.
“The underlying problem that results in MIS-C appears to be a dysfunction of the immune system,” said Dr. Ermias Belay, who leads the CDC team searching for MIS-C cases.
The immune system traps in overdrive when it sees the virus, and contains chemicals that can damage various organs, he added.
In the study, many of the patients with the condition had severe complications, including inflammation of the heart, shock, and kidney damage. Nearly two-thirds of the cases were generally admitted to intensive care units, and the average ICU stay was five days.
The CDC report covers diseases that started from mid-February to mid-July. Forty states reported cases.
The report found that 13% of children with the condition were white, while more than 40% were Hispanic and 33% Black. Overall, about half of American children are white, about 25% Spanish and about 14% are black, according to population estimates.
Scientists are still learning about the condition. Experts say that genetics has nothing to do with why some racial and ethnic groups are more likely to be infected by the virus, become seriously ill from it or die from it. But it is not yet clear if genetics plays a role in the state of childhood inflation, Shahpar and Belay said.
Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami contributed.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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