In the first four months of the pandemic, only a small percentage of children with COVID-19 needed intensive care, a review of 131 studies finds.
Published in EClinicalMedicine, a journal of The Lancet, the review included 131 studies from 26 countries published between Jan. 24 and May 14. Together, the studies include 7,780 pediatric patients. The majority of the studies were from China, but the largest study that was included was a case series of 2,572 patients reported by the CDC.
Five study findings:
1. About 3.3 percent of the patients were admitted to intensive care units.
2. Seven patients (0.09 percent) died.
3. About 5.6 percent suffered from co-infections, such as influenza, in addition to COVID-19.
4. Eleven children (0.14 percent) met the criteria for pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
5. Nineteen percent of the patients were asymptomatic.