Two years after the first COVID-19 cases were diagnosed in the United States, kids are back in school, more of them have health insurance, and life has begun to look a bit more “normal.” But that doesn’t mean the kids are alright.
Nearly 13 million U.S. children have contracted childhood COVID, more than 241,000 have lost a caregiver. The youngest children in our country remain unvaccinated. And we have only just begun to considerthe long-term effects of childhood COVID.
The pandemic and its economic fallout have had an outsized impact on every aspect of the health and well-being of U.S. children. The numbers below tell only part of that story. But they are a good place to start.
Physical health:
Despite early misconceptions that children don’t get COVID, childhood COVID accounts for 19% of all COVID-19 cases in the United States.
- 12.9+million: Number of U.S. children who have contracted childhood COVID
- 120,344: Number of U.S. children hospitalized with childhood COVID
- 7,880: Number of U.S. children who developed the serious condition known as multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MISC)
- 1,484: Number of children who have died in the United States with childhood COVID
- 13: Where COVID-19 ranks among the top 15 causes of death in U.S. children
- 19 million: Total number of U.S. children under 5, for whom there is still no vaccine
Emotional health:
Our country’s children are in the throes of a full-blown mental health crisis.
- 31%: Percentage increase in mental health-related emergency room visits in the U.S. by 12-17-year-olds in 2020
- 5: Where suicide ranks among the top 15 causes of death in U.S. children
- 0: The number of states that meet the recommended ratio of one social worker for every 250 students
- 4,000+: The number of students served by a single school psychologist in West Virginia, Missouri, Texas, Alaska, and Georgia.
- 247,000+: The number of U.S. children grieving a caregiver who died of COVID
Economic Stability:
At the height of the pandemic in 2021, government programs in the American Rescue Plan cut child poverty in the U.S. by 36%.
- 3.7 million: The number of U.S. children who slid back into poverty when improvements to the child tax credit expired
- 6.7 million: Number of children expected to lose health coverage in the United States when the Public Health Emergency ends
- 1-in-6: The number of U.S. children who experienced food insecurity last year
- 22%: Percentage of U.S. households with children who are behind on rent
Inequity:
Black, Hispanic, Indigenous and other children of color in the United States are far more likely to contract childhood COVID, be hospitalized, lose a caregiver to the disease, suffer economic consequences, and endure other pandemic fallout than their white counterparts.
- 65%: Percentage of U.S. children who lost a caregiver to COVID who belong to racial and ethnic minorities
- 2x: The likelihood of Black or Hispanic children losing a caregiver to COVID, v. white children
- 4.5x: The likelihood of American Indian/Alaska Native children losing a caregiver to COVID, v. white children
- 29%: Percentage of Black renters with children who are behind on rent, v. 22% for all U.S. renters with children
- 3x: The rate of food insecurity among Black and Hispanic households v. white households
- 70%: The percentage of total U.S. MISC cases that occurred in children who are Black or Hispanic
- 3 million: The number of marginalized K-12 students — those with disabilities, experiencing homelessness, in foster care or who are migrants — who stopped attending school
Where we go from here:
Emergency pandemic aid — improved tax credits, increased food benefits, economic impact payments, and other child-centered initiatives — achieved historic levels of well-being for U.S. children. These investments reversed more than a decade of decline in federal spending on children, helping lift nearly 4 million out of poverty and producing the largest year-to-year increase in the share of U.S. federal spending on kids since First Focus on Children began tracking 15 years ago.
We must capitalize on this progress. And propose long-term solutions to these long-term problems.