Six healthy children died of Covid in a year, analysis by NHS shows
‘Tiny number’ of deaths from virus as studies reveal wider effects on cancer and eating disorders in young
COVID killed just six healthy children during the pandemic, while lockdowns have fuelled a timebomb of cancer and eating disorders among the young, new data shows.
The research examining more than 3,000 deaths of under-18s in England in the year since the first lockdown found that a “tiny” proportion were linked to Covid. Just 25 deaths were caused by the virus, and only six of those involved children without underlying conditions.
The same year saw more than 1,100 heart deaths among children, along with almost 1,200 fatalities linked to neurological conditions, and more than 450 deaths among under 18s with respiratory conditions, the research published in Nature Medicine shows.
Meanwhile, a separate study from Oxford University shows a 17 per cent fall in diagnoses of childhood cancers in the months following the first lockdown. Researchers found that those diagnosed during the pandemic were twice as likely to be admitted to intensive care before diagnosis, suggesting that the disease was more advanced, when survival chances are worse.
And “alarming” NHS statistics show the number of children waiting for treatment for eating disorders has doubled in the past year. The official figures show more than 2,000 children and young people waiting for treatment in September 2021 – up from 860 in a year.
Experts said the slew of data painted a devastating picture of the long-term harm inflicted on children, and the problems being stored up for the future.
Dr Camilla Kingdon, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said the study showed “very, very tiny numbers” of children dying from Covid.
Meanwhile, successive lockdowns and social distancing caused far greater consequences “through lost education, mental health, and other collateral damage”, she said, with much of the impact yet to be seen.
“There was a view that kids weren’t affected by Covid. But what we would constantly try to point out – and which some of this data shows – is actually, these are wider issues that are no less detrimental to children and may have a more long lasting impact actually, than the virus itself,” she said.
Dr Kingdon said children had paid “a very very heavy price” for the pandemic. And she said the impact was seen in many aspects of their health.
“You can also see it in community child heath services, autism assessments, therapy referrals. We’ve got a significant backlog to remedy as we move beyond the pandemic.”
“Aspects of child health services have taken a hit because of the pandemic and there’s going to be a long process to catch that up,” she warned.
Russell Viner, Professor of Child and Adolescent Health at UCL, an author of the paper on Covid cases, said: “When you look at this data together, it tells us that the indirect effects of the pandemic on children are likely to be significantly greater than the direct effects.”
‘There are wider issues that may have a more long lasting impact on children than the virus itself ’
Likening the actions taken in lockdown to “wrapping our children in cotton wool” he warned that the steps taken in an effort to protect them now risked “suffocating their mental health”.
Official data shows a dip in all childhood mortalities during the pandemic, with most flu and other respiratory infections wiped out by social distancing measures.
But Prof Viner said this was likely to “rebound at us” in coming years, with lack of exposure to everyday bugs leaving immune systems more vulnerable.
“The concern is that what we are doing is storing up problems for the future,” Prof Viner said.
The study of childhood cancers by Oxford University examined diagnoses among children and young people up to the age of 25, comparing the period from February 2020 to August 2020 with the same period in previous years.
Overall, the numbers diagnosed with brain tumours, leukaemia, lymphoma, sarcoma and renal tumour fell by almost a fifth. The study also suggests cases were detected far later than would normally be the case, with cases diagnosed during the pandemic twice as likely to be detected after admission to intensive care. Yesterday NHS data showed 5.8million people on waiting lists for treatment, and the worst Accident & Emergency performance on record.
The monthly statistics show the number of children waiting for treatment for eating disorders has more than doubled in a year. In total, there were 2,083 children and young people waiting for routine or urgent eating disorder treatment at the end of September this year, up from 860 during the same period last year. Experts said the figures were “alarming”.
The study of childhood deaths was carried out by experts from NHS England, the former Public Health England and several universities and hospitals, who analysed mortality figures between March 2020 and February 2021.
They found just six healthy children with no underlying health conditions died as a direct result of catching Covid, including two who developed a Kawasaki-like inflammatory condition called Pims-ts.
When the Government establishes the independent official inquiry that it has promised into the Covid-19 pandemic next spring, one aspect must be at the very heart of its investigation: the way the country treated its children and young people. By any standard they got a raw deal: in schools and colleges, they either missed lessons altogether or were subjected to an experiment in “virtual” learning that was a poor simulacrum of the real thing. In universities, they were literally shortchanged when, again, lecturers stayed at home, courses were cancelled and student accommodation was severely curtailed. Prevented from socialising, and at times almost dehumanised as mere vectors of disease, a marvellous part of growing up was denied them and the life chances of millions may well have been permanently damaged.
The manner in which the interests of the young were disregarded was all the more extraordinary given that the virus itself posed very little risk to their health. As we report today, just six children under the age of 18 with no underlying medical conditions died after contracting Covid-19, compared to tens of thousands of the older generations. It is sometimes said that Covid does not discriminate. That has always been completely wrong.
Younger people do, however, seem to be paying the price for the effective closure of the NHS during lockdown to non-covid patients. Serious health conditions such as cancer have gone undiagnosed or untreated, and X-ray examinations were not completed. Figures for the year to February 2021 reveal that there was a 17 per cent reduction in the number of X-ray cancer checks for children and young people. In the same period, there were 1,100 deaths among children from heart disease and 951 from infectious diseases. Waiting times also rose for children with eating disorders and those with mental health issues.
For much of the past two years, ministers and their advisers have focused almost exclusively on minimising the impact of Covid-19, with little regard to the consequences of the restrictions they imposed to do so. Now, the cost is becoming depressingly clear. The young have paid a high price to control a virus they were, by and large, spared from. They deserved better.