40,000 parentless children
Researchers say virus stats reveal ‘staggering’ impact
About 40,000 young children in the U.S. have already lost a parent to COVID-19, according to researchers who this week called the number a “staggering” estimate.
As of February, 37,337 children aged 0 to 17 years had lost at least one parent due to the virus, researchers wrote in a JAMA Pediatrics letter.
That breaks down to 9,863 children aged 0 to 9 years, and 27,474 children aged 10 to 17 years.
The researchers also examined excess death counts to address underestimates of mortality and deaths indirectly due to the pandemic. Taking excess deaths into account, they estimate that 43,027 young children have lost a parent.
“The number of children experiencing a parent dying of COVID-19 is staggering, with an estimated 37,300 to 43,000 already affected,” they wrote in the research letter. “For comparison, the attacks on September 11, 2001, left 3,000 children without a parent.
“The burden will grow heavier as the death toll continues to mount,” they added.
the coronavirus was the third leading cause of death in the U.S. last year as the country’s death rate spiked by more than 15%, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week.
COVID-19 was listed as the underlying cause — or a contributing cause of death — of 377,883 deaths during 2020. The virus was the third leading underlying cause of death after heart disease (690,882 deaths) and cancer (598,932), according to the CDC’s provisional death data.
Overall, more than 3.3 million deaths occurred in the U.S. last year, a significant jump of nearly 16% in deaths from 2019.
For the research on young children who lost a parent to the virus, the researchers estimated the expected number of affected children for each COVID-19 death — the parental bereavement multiplier.
“Our model suggests that each COVID-19 death leaves 0.078 children aged 0 to 17 parentally bereaved,” they wrote. “This represents a 17.5% to 20.2% increase in parental bereavement absent COVID-19. Although the bereavement multiplier is small, it translates into large numbers of children who have lost a parent.”
They added that Black children are “disproportionately
affected, comprising only 14% of children in the US but 20% of those losing a parent to COVID-19.”
Boston-based Samaritans Executive Director Kathy Marchi said for these young people, this grief will be something they cope with and face for their entire lives.
“The more support and services, the better,” she said. “People can be helped when they talk with others who experienced what they experienced … . It’s important to find a support group or meeting that addresses this.”