By Irwin Redlener and Jeff Schlegelmilch
The COVID-19 pandemic, like virtually every other major disaster, has had a particularly outsized impact on children.
While children have been less susceptible to contracting COVID-19 and especially its more severe manifestations than adults, they can, in fact, get very sick. While very few COVID-19 fatalities have been reported in children, about 3 million have been infected, representing between one and three percent of all hospitalizations.
Additionally, more than one thousand children under the age of 10 have developed a COVID-19 related illness cause called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children. Children can also be carriers of the virus and as such, are capable of transmitting to older, high-risk adults. Psychological and behavioral conditions are also increasingly prevalent in younger people.
But it is well beyond the direct health impacts of COVID-19 that create a high level of concern for children who are part of the pandemic generation.
