England’s COVID-19 Mortality Rate 0.0006 Percent Among Under 20s: Official Study Finds
Six in a million children and young people under 20 years old have died from COVID-19 in England between March 2020 and December 2021 and three-quarters of them had comorbidities, a study has found.
The peer-reviewed study, published on Tuesday on the PLOS Medicine Journal website, was carried out by researchers from the UK government’s Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
Studying follow-up data on under-20s who died within 100 days of a lab-confirmed COVID-19 infection, the team concluded that COVID-19 deaths remain “extremely rare” in children and young people (CYP), corroborating findings from a number of previous analyses that looked at data from a shorter period of time.
According to the study, between March 2020 and December 2021, there were 187 CYP deaths within 100 days of a lab-confirmed COVID-19 infection.
20 Healthy CYP Died From COVID-19
Excluding two stillbirth/intrauterine deaths, 81 (43 percent) of the rest were attributed to COVID-19.
It accounts for 1.2 percent of all-cause CYP deaths, with a COVID-19 infection fatality rate of seven in a million (using estimated infections number) and an overall mortality rate of six in a million (estimated CYP population).
Of the 81 COVID-19 deaths, one in four (20) were otherwise healthy while 61 had “significant underlying health conditions,” including neuro-disability, immunocompromising conditions, Down syndrome, Edward syndrome, chronic heart disease, and four premature birth, meaning COVID-19 mortality rate for otherwise healthy CYD was 1.5 per million.
COVID-19 deaths were also clustered among older teens and infants, with more than half (47) occurring among those aged between 16 and 19 and 22 under one year old.
Eight children from the one to four group died from COVID-19, along with 12 children aged between five and 11, and 15 children aged between 12 and 15.
More than half (45) of the COVID-19 deaths occurred when the Delta variant of the novel coronavirus was dominant, while 21 died during the wild-type-dominant period and 15 died during the Alpha wave.
But the Delta variant was the least deadly in terms of infection mortality rate (six in a million) compared to Alpha (eight in a million), and the wild-type (10 in a million) as it was more infectious than the previous variants.
The Omicron variant, which became dominant this year, was not included in the study. Prof. Shamez Ladhani, paediatric infectious disease consultant at St. George’s Hospital London and Consultant Epidemiologist at the UKHSA who co-authored the study, told The Telegraph that “emerging data suggest that the Omicron variant is even less fatal in children compared to previous variants.”
Vaccination Status
Young adults and children over 12 years old were offered COVID-19 vaccines in staggered groups since June 2021. Under-12s were not offered vaccination during the studied period.
Less than a third (59) of CYP who died within 100 days of a lab-confirmed COVID-19 infection were eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccination.
Among COVID-19 deaths, 22 were eligible and two were vaccinated, one with one dose and the other with two doses.
Among non-COVID-19 deaths, 37 were eligible for COVID-19 vaccination, 10 received one dose and six had two doses.
Maternal vaccination status for infant deaths was not included in the study. In an email to The Epoch Times, Ladhani said maternal vaccination was not a focus of the study as it’s “very difficult to derive any robust conclusions from the small numbers of infants” included in the paper.
The UKHSA previously published an analysis saying vaccinated women had similar birth outcomes compared to unvaccinated women between January and August 2021, with slightly lower rates of stillbirth and low-birthweight babies and a slightly higher rate of premature births.
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Lily Zhou is an Irish-based reporter focusing on UK news. Lily first joined the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times before turning her focus on the UK in 2020. Contact Lily at lily.zhou@epochtimes.com