As the second wave ebbs, there has been a steady increase since March this year in the share of Covid-positive children below 10 years in the overall active cases, according to data available with the Empowered Group-1 (EG-1) that is tasked with formulating the nation’s Covid emergency strategy.
The data show that the share of children aged 1-10 years in the total active Covid-19 cases has increased steadily from 2.80% in March this year to 7.04% in August. That is, of every 100 active Covid cases, around seven are of children.
Insisting that the “marginal shift” towards children can’t be termed “dramatic”, experts say the rising Covid cases in the 1-10 years age group could be the result of reduced vulnerability of adults to the virus.
The data was presented at a meeting of the EG-1 — headed by NITI Aayog member V K Paul — that had officials from different ministries in attendance, including the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
The data show that before March, in the nine months from June 2020 to February 2021, children aged 1-10 were in the range of 2.72% to 3.59% of the total active cases.
Out of 18 states and Union Territories for which data are available, in the month of August, Covid-19 cases among children were the highest in Mizoram (16.48% of total active cases) and the lowest in Delhi (2.25%). Eight states — Mizoram (16.48%), Meghalaya (9.35%), Manipur (8.74%), Kerala (8.62%), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (8.2%), Sikkim (8.02%), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (7.69%) and Arunachal Pradesh (7.38%) — recorded a higher proportion of children with Covid-19 than the national average of 7.04%.
The states which recorded a lower proportion than the national average for August were Puducherry (6.95%), Goa (6.86%), Nagaland (5.48%), Assam (5.04%), Karnataka (4.59%), Andhra Pradesh (4.53%), Odisha (4.18%), Maharashtra (4.08%), Tripura (3.54%) and Delhi (2.25%).
