Nearly 52 million children around the world have been documented with childhood COVID and more than 7 million have lost a caregiver to the disease. But COVID’s impact on children around the world doesn’t stop at the number of cases and deaths. The pandemic, and its forced isolation, its economic disruption, have reached into every aspect of children’s lives, from education to family relationships to their physical and mental health and well-being.
The numbers below only begin to tell that story.
Vaccine distribution
Nearly 12 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered across 184 countries, but vaccination rates for children around the globe appear to remain low and information is sparse.
- 100+: Number of countries vaccinating children against COVID
- 16%: Percent of global reported COVID cases confirmed in people under 20
- 2 years: The age at which children are vaccine eligible in Cuba
- 45%: Percentage of 12-17 year-olds in Germany who are fully vaccinated, as of Nov. 2021
Loss of Caregivers
Every 12 seconds, a child somewhere in the world loses a mother, or father, or grandparent caregiver to COVID.
- 7 million+: Number of children globally who have lost a caregiver to COVID
- 2 million+: Number of children 10-17 who have lost a caregiver, the largest cohort
- 2400: Number of children who have lost a caregiver in Germany
- 1,917,100: Number of children who have lost a caregiver in India
Child labor
The pandemic stalled global progress toward ending child labor for the first time in 20 years.
- 160 million: Number of children currently involved in child labor, or 1-in-10 worldwide
- 79 million: Number of children 5-17 doing “hazardous” work — work that endangers their health, safety or morals
- 9 million: Number of additional children at risk of entering child labor by end of 2022
Education
Students globally are eight months behind where they would have been without the pandemic, and impact varies widely.
- 463 million: Number of children worldwide who were unable to access remote learning during 2020 school closures.
- 1.8 trillion: Number of in-person learning hours students around the world have lost so far
- 77 million: Number of schoolchildren who have missed almost all in-person instruction time
- 6: Number of countries these 77 million children come from
- 20 million: Number of girls around the world who will never return to school
Violence against children
The pandemic disrupted vital protection services, with case management and home visits for at-risk children and women topping the list.
- 5 million+: Number of children worldwide who live in institutions, many of which have shut down
- 1.8 billion: Number of children who live in countries where violence prevention and response services have been disrupted