COVID-19 is a children’s crisis. In the early months of the pandemic, children constituted a low proportion of the population infected. However, as the virus has spread, the number of children and young people who become infected and develop COVID-19 is also increasing and requires specific actions.
While our understanding of the impact of COVID-19 on children through science, data and research is evolving rapidly, we have more insight as the pandemic approaches its first anniversary:
- Children and young people are susceptible to infection from COVID‑19. Even if the pandemic is not predominantly affecting children, the number of children infected is increasing in many countries. While they tend to have milder symptoms compared to adults, severe cases and death do happen, especially among children with co-morbidities.
- While not the main driver of community transmission, children can transmit the virus to each other and older age groups. Older children and adolescents need to practice the same behaviors such as social distancing and mask wearing as other members of the population.
- Given the critical role that testing plays in controlling the outbreak, more age‑disaggregated testing data and representative studies in specific locations would help to better understand the geographic and age distribution to guide context-specific COVID-19 response measures.
- Children and schools are not the main drivers of the epidemic across countries. Evidence shows that the net benefits of keeping schools open outweigh the costs of closing them. Data from 191 countries show no consistent association between school reopening status and COVID-19 infection rates.
- Disruptions to healthcare, nutrition, education, water and sanitation, and social and child protection services have been devastating for children and young people. Even before the pandemic, about 45 per cent of children were severely deprived of at least one of these critical needs. There have been steep declines in facility-based care such as childbirth services, immunizations, treatment of children with severe malnutrition and health care for sick children, particularly in several countries in South Asia, the Middle East and Latin America
- Children’s and adolescents’ mental health has suffered during the pandemic. Worries about the future, loss of education and job prospects, health concerns, and disruptions in peer and social networks have all affected children’s lives.
- The economic impacts of the pandemic will reverberate for years to come, sustaining heightened poverty. Globally, the number of children living in multidimensional poverty – without access to education, health, housing, nutrition, sanitation, or water – is estimated to have soared to a 15 per cent increase, an additional 150 million children by mid-2020.