Child Covid deaths in England 2020-22

[WuTangGran]

Data from gov.uk

Source? Looks Italian…

Data gathered from here: coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

I've been looking at the dataset, and the numbers of deaths appear correct (I've not poked round every bit)

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths?areaType=nation&areaName=England

The obvious unanswered question is why are more DC dying from variants considered mild. Why is the trend upwards? I think we need to understand more about that, especially given the growing body of evidence that covid dysregulates the immune system

And (to be a bit brutal) does it matter - at a population level - when the rates are low (5.9 per 100,000 for 15-19 yo, for comparison its 65.6 for 40-44yo and 1227.5 for 70-74 yo)

Not sure what you want to achieve with this.

These are deaths within 28 days of a positive test. I know that conspiracy theorists wang on about "maybe they all got run over by buses" and are normally talking bollocks, and the "within 28 days" data is very useful for speed in an emerging outbreak, but for this purpose, when we're talking about very low numbers, I'd suggest that the ONS death certificate data would be more useful.

Here's the link if anyone's at a loose end, I've got it downloaded somewhere and will look it up myself later.
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths

Are they still testing anyone who goes into hospital?

Without any context such figures are meaningless , but to correct some language - children have not died from Covid, regardless of variants. They have died with Covid. Or in fact, within 28 days of a positive test. That is one reason why context is important. For example, the leading cause of deaths in children between 1 and 9 are cancers. Around 250 children die from cancer every year. That is a tragic, but minsicule number. And three times the number of deaths with Covid in the graph.

Unvarnished data does nothing to inform and simply scares people into thinking there is a huge risk.

Yes, it's very clear about its methodology (always a good sign)

I've had a quick look through the ONS charts and I can't see one that does covid deaths by age. So I hope you do return with it, as it might be tucked away somewhere non-obvious and I'd like to see.

The figures (at first glance) between the covid dashboard and the ONS are very little different however. Certainly (IMO) not enough to discredit the trend - especially as for the most part, children weren't tested unless symptomatic (except older children in 2021) and also children generally aren't dying in large numbers from other causes, so the confounder (whilst I agree could have more impact in lower numbers) is very much less likely to occur.

Weekly ONS data has a split by age - I'll dig it up. Overall numbers for children were down significantly in 2020 - largely driven by reductions in non-virus respiratory virus deaths in babies IIRC.

Ok, I've found the ONS data and I was wrong, it shows the same pattern. For deaths involving Covid 19 in the 0-19 age range, the figures are 20 in 2020, 66 in 2021 and 55 in 2022. Not sure what's driving that, but of course these are very small numbers amongst a population of over 12 million.

Delta will explain the deaths from end of 2021 start of 2022. It really wasn’t as mild as wild type in children. Alpha was somewhere between the two.

Omicron is a difficult one to call. The ‘omicron is mild’ headlines got taken out of context from the ready of the sentence ‘due to vaccination’ which often appeared buried in articles. U.K. children are under vaccinated so it may well mean that omicron is milder for those with 3 jabs and an omicron containing booster but in children it is less mild than the 2020 wild type and leads to increased hospitalisations and deaths.

Thank you @HowVeryLikeSibella

It's important to recognise that no matter how awful for the families concerned, the numbers are very small, and would have to grow a long way before being cause for concern

(And I note with irritation that the numbers of strep deaths are about half the number of covid deaths, but which is grabbing the headlines?)