Children more than 100 times less likely to die from COVID than adults, study finds

Children are more than 100 times less likely to die from COVID-19 than adults, even as the virus ranks as the eighth most likely cause of death for children, according to a new study. 

Overall, children ages 0-19 die from COVID at a rate of 1 per 100,000, with that rate dropping significantly to an average of .5 per 100,000 for children ages 1 to 14 from August 2021 through July 2022, according to a study published last week by JAMA Network. 

COVID constituted 2% of all deaths in children, while unintentional injuries accounted for 18.4% of child deaths and 6.8% were from suicide. This means that children are over nine times more likely to die in an accident and over three times more likely to die from suicide than they are from COVID.

During this same time period, adults died from COVID at a rate of 109 per 100,000, making children more than a hundred times less likely to die from COVID than adults.