COVID-19 Trends Among Persons Aged 0-24 Years - United States, March 1-December 12, 2020

Abstract

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.

FIGURE 1

COVID-19 weekly incidence,^,† by age group — United States, March 1–December 12, 2020^§ Abbreviation: COVID-19 = coronavirus disease 2019. * The 7-day moving average of new cases (current day + 6 preceding days/7) was calculated to smooth expected variation in daily case counts. ^† Incidence was calculated per 100,000 population using 2019 U.S. Census population estimates obtained from Kids Count Data Center (https://datacenter.kidscount.org/data). ^§ Data included through December 12, 2020, so that each week has a full 7 days of data.

FIGURE 2

Weekly test volume and percentage of SARS-CoV-2-positive test results among persons aged 0–24 years, by age group — United States, May 31–December 12, 2020 * By reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction testing. ^† Data included through December 12, 2020, so that each week has a full 7 days of data.