Nearly 1 in 4 COVID-19 Cases Are in Children, What That Means as the School Years Starts

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  • Children are increasingly making up a larger proportion of COVID-19 cases in the United States.
  • As the school year starts, we talked with experts about what parents can do to keep children safe from COVID-19, even if they’re too young to be vaccinated.
  • Experts say keeping children at home in areas with high rates of COVID-19, in addition to masking and social distancing, can decrease the risk of getting COVID-19.

For much of the pandemic, young children seemed to be unlikely to develop COVID-19 compared with adults. But now, as the Delta variant has surged, it’s affecting many unvaccinated people — including children under 12 who are too young to be vaccinated.

Since the pandemic began, children have represented nearly 15 percent of total cases, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). But for the week ending August 26, children now make up 22.4 percent of reported weekly COVID-19 cases.

With school beginning, it raises more questions about how best to keep children, and those at risk, safe.

Source: healthline