One state that has had more than its share of pediatric cases is Tennessee, where 130,000 kids have gotten infected and seven have died, including Gigi Morse, whose mother called her “Gigi Pickles.” total, and as of early this month, 10 states had suffered no child fatalities. Nor were extraordinary efforts by EMTs, doctors and nurses, who pumped and pressed and prayed long beyond each child’s last breath.Ĭhild deaths amount to 0.2 percent of the U.S. Still, nearly 3 million children in the United States have tested positive for the coronavirus, about 12 percent of all cases, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.įor some children, the extra protection wasn’t enough. “Younger kids, 10 and under, are both less likely to get infected when exposed and less likely to spread the disease when infected,” O’Leary said. Like most kids, they probably had some extra protection against the coronavirus, possibly because their noses and throats contain fewer of the receptors that the virus binds to, or because of their more robust immune systems. Elizabeth English, a 12-year-old cheerleader in Arizona, was all about finding what would make people more beautiful the equipment bag she carried was the plumpest on her squad because she stocked hair spray, gel and bobby pins for her teammates. Tagan Drone, a 5-year-old in Amarillo, Tex., planned to be a mermaid for Halloween. Boatman, a 9-year-old in Texas, was thinking about his future he wanted to be a policeman or maybe work at Taco Casa so he could bring tacos home every day. In Gainesville, Fla., Kimmie Lynum was busy planning her 10th birthday party. They left behind stuffed animals worn raw with love, siblings who still wander into their rooms looking for them, and, next to one child’s tombstone, a little white concrete bench, bedazzled with pink rhinestones that spell out “Kim.” They were kids who were obsessed with vampires and unicorns, thrilled by skateboarding and Mario Kart. The children who have died of covid-19 are, even more than among adults, disproportionately children of color - about three-quarters of those who’ve succumbed to covid so far, according to CDC data. “For every one of these deaths, quite a few kids spend a long time in ICUs and suffer lingering effects.” … They don’t have a problem.”Īlthough relatively few children die of covid-19, “it’s not fair to say it’s a benign disease among children,” said Sean O’Leary, an immunization researcher at Children’s Hospital Colorado and vice chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics committee on infectious diseases. The day before Gigi died, President Donald Trump said that children “are almost immune from this disease. In this new national graveyard of virus victims, the section set aside for the young held 271 children as of early February, according to data from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Įach death represents a shattered family and a trauma deepened, parents say, by the rampant belief that kids can’t get covid, or that it doesn’t much harm them when they do. The necropolis of covid has grown into a city of sorrow the size of Atlanta or Sacramento - a death toll larger than the combined American losses in combat from the Civil War, World War I and World War II, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. “Do people see just how destroyed your family and your life is, six months later? Half-a-million families who’ve had their world torn apart?”Īs the nation reaches the milestone of a half-million deaths about a year after the first American succumbed to the coronavirus, the number of children killed by the disease remains relatively small. “You see on the news, ‘X amount of people died,’ but it’s so much more than that,” Priscilla said. The virus didn’t kill anyone else in the Morse family, but Gigi’s mother says it might as well have. She was a dynamo of a kid who loved Froot Loops and was obsessed with all things “Frozen” - the songs, the characters. Struggling, a lot.”Ĭovid-19 killed Gigi Morse in August in Jackson, Tenn. “They were happy, well-adjusted kids,” their mother says now. The older kids believe they should have checked in on their sister sooner. He called 911, but wonders if he couldn’t have noticed earlier. Their 11-year-old son thinks it’s his fault: He’s the one who noticed his 6-year-old sister lying still, eyes open, blank stare. He brought the virus that causes covid-19 into the house after picking it up at the pool supply shop he manages. Priscilla’s husband, David, blames himself.
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