Nearly 14 mn US kids infected with Covid

WASHINGTON: Nearly 14 million children in the US have tested positive for Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, according to the latest report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association.

Almost 371,000 of these cases have been added in the past four weeks, Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying.

Approximately 6.4 million reported cases have been added in 2022, it said.

For the week ending August 11, almost 87,000 child Covid cases were reported.

There is an urgent need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects, said the AAP.

"It is important to recognize there are immediate effects of the pandemic on children's health, but importantly we need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth," said the AAP.

As of Wednesday morning, the overall Covid-19 caseload and death toll in the US stood at 94,869,936 and 1,063,087, respectively.

The two tallies account for the highest in the world.