More American children contracted COVID-19 from Jan. 7-14 than any other week during the pandemic, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics


What You Need To Know

  • There were a record 211,466 new COVID-19 infections among children from Jan. 7-14, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics

  • The number of new cases was up 18% compared to the previous week

  • Children accounted for 12.6% of all coronavirus infections in the U.S. as of Jan. 14, but they are less likely to become severely ill

There were 211,466 new infections among children reported that week, an 18% increase from the week before. The previous high was 182,018 for the week ending on Dec. 17.

With more than 2.5 million cases during the pandemic, children had accounted for 12.6% of all coronavirus infections in the U.S. as of Jan. 14, but they are less likely to become severely ill. According to the AAP’s data, more than 182,000 children have been hospitalized with the virus (ranging from 1.2%-2.8% of all hospitalizations in the states for which data was available), and 191 have died (0.00%-0.17% in each state). 

North Dakota, Tennessee, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming had the highest per-capita rates of child COVID-19 cases last week, but Northeastern states — Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Delaware among them — were largely seeing the biggest increases. 

The report had data for 49 states, New York City, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam, but only had numbers from 24 states and NYC for hospitalizations, and from 43 states and NYC for mortalities.