Type: Article
Publication Date: 2021-01-13
Citations: 211
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7003e1
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) case and electronic laboratory data reported to CDC were analyzed to describe demographic characteristics, underlying health conditions, and clinical outcomes, as well as trends in laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 incidence and testing volume among U.S. children, adolescents, and young adults (persons aged 0-24 years).This analysis provides a critical update and expansion of previously published data, to include trends after fall school reopenings, and adds preschool-aged children (0-4 years) and college-aged young adults (18-24 years) (1).Among children, adolescents, and young adults, weekly incidence (cases per 100,000 persons) increased with age and was highest during the final week of the review period (the week of December 6) among all age groups.Time trends in weekly reported incidence for children and adolescents aged 0-17 years tracked consistently with trends observed among adults since June, with both incidence and positive test results tending to increase since September after summer declines.Reported incidence and positive test results among children aged 0-10 years were consistently lower than those in older age groups.To reduce community transmission, which will support schools in operating more safely for in-person learning, communities and schools should fully implement and strictly adhere to recommended mitigation strategies, especially universal and proper masking, to reduce COVID-19 incidence.Children, adolescents, and young adults were stratified into five age groups: 0-4, 5-10, 11-13, 14-17, and 18-24 years to align with educational groupings (i.e., pre-, elementary, middle, and high schools, and institutions of higher education), and trends in these groups were compared with those in adults aged ≥25 years.Confirmed COVID-19 cases, defined as positive real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test results for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, were identified from individual-level case reports submitted by state and territorial health departments during March 1-December 12, 2020.*COVID-19 case data for all confirmed cases were analyzed to * CDC official counts of COVID-19 cases and deaths, released daily at https:// www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html, are aggregate counts from reporting jurisdictions.Individual-level case report data were available for approximately 75% of the aggregate number of confirmed cases.Cases reported without sex or age data and in persons repatriated to the United States from Wuhan, China, or the Diamond Princess cruise ship were excluded from this analysis.