Washington (AFP)

The United States has officially recorded 277,285 coronavirus infections in children aged 5 to 17 since March, for 51 deaths, according to the most comprehensive study of cases conducted by the American health authorities, as schools reflect to bring students back to classrooms.

Between March 1 and September 19, the case fatality rate - the proportion of confirmed cases that have died - calculated for children of school age in the United States, according to this study by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) published on Monday, is therefore 0.018%.

As the number of confirmed cases, for children as for adults, is arguably underestimated by several orders of magnitude since many minor cases have never been tested, the new figures confirm that the lethality real coronavirus rate is extremely low in this age group, compared to adults and especially older people.

In another analysis published on its site on September 10, the CDC estimated that, in the most likely scenario, the case fatality rates by age group (number of deaths over actual number of infections) were 0.003% ( 0-19 years), 0.02% (20-49 years), 0.5% (50-69 years) and 5.4% (70 years and over).

Among children, a notable difference exists between those over and under 11, according to the CDC study: the incidence was double in 12-17 year olds than in 5-11 year olds.

And the analysis confirms that minorities are the hardest hit in the country: 42% of infected children were Hispanic, 32% white and 17% black.

Out of 277,000 cases, 3,240 were hospitalized, 404 admitted to intensive care, and 51 died.

Overall, several studies in the United States and elsewhere have found that children are less vulnerable, although not fully immune, than adults.

In the journal Science, last week, two researchers in the UK summarized the state of knowledge by writing that hospitalizations of infected children were rare, and only 1% of hospitalized children died, compared to 27% overall. ages on average.

The scientific debate continues to understand whether young people are infected less or as much as adults.

Last week, an analysis that compiled 32 studies on the subject and published by the journal Jama Pediatrics, concluded that children and adolescents under the age of 20 were in fact 44% less likely to be infected.

The same analysis could not conclude whether children were on the other hand more or less vectors than adults.

© 2020 AFP