Infection Fatality Rate of COVID-19 Was 0.0003 Percent At 0–19 Years: Study

A child reacts while receiving a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at Smoketown Family Wellness Center in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., Nov. 8, 2021. Reuters/Jon Cherry/File Photo

A study that looked into the age-stratified infection fatality rate (IFR) of COVID-19 among the non-elderly population has found that the rate was extremely low among young people.

“The median IFR was 0.0003 percent at 0–19 years, 0.002 percent at 20–29 years, 0.011 percent at 30–39 years, 0.035 percent at 40–49 years, 0.123 percent at 50–59 years, and 0.506 percent at 60–69 years,” the study conducted across 29 countries stated. “At a global level, pre-vaccination IFR may have been as low as 0.03 percent and 0.07 percent for 0–59 and 0–69-year-old people, respectively.”

The study aimed to accurately estimate the IFR of COVID-19 among non-elderly populations in the absence of vaccination or prior infection.

For every additional 10 years in age, the IFR was observed to increase by roughly four times. After including data from nine more nations, the median IFR for 0–59 years came in at 0.025 to 0.032 percent and for 0–69 years was at 0.063 to 0.082 percent.

According to the study, the analysis suggests a “much lower” pre-vaccination IFR in the non-elderly population than had been suggested previously. The large differences found between nations were pegged to differences in factors like comorbidities.

Vaccination Dangers Among Youth

A recent study that analyzed children between the ages of 5 and 17 who had received Pfizer COVID-19 shots found an elevated risk of heart inflammation among children as young as 12 years old.

Myocarditis and pericarditis met the threshold for a safety signal for children aged between 12 and 17 following the second and third doses. These heart conditions can cause long-term issues and even death.

“The signal detected for myocarditis/pericarditis is consistent with published peer-reviewed publications demonstrating an elevated risk of myocarditis/pericarditis following mRNA vaccines, especially among younger males aged 12-29 years,” the researchers said.

In an interview with Fox News back in January, MIT researcher Stephanie Seneff had said that it was “outrageous” to give COVID-19 vaccines to young people as they have a “very, very low risk” of dying from the infection.

When looking at the potential harms of these vaccines for children, they don’t make “any sense,” she added. With repeated boosters, such treatment will be “devastating” in the long term.

Parents should do “absolutely everything they can” to avoid getting their children vaccinated against COVID-19, the research scientist advised.

Vaccinating Children

Some countries have stopped their COVID-19 vaccine programs for children. In October, the Swedish Public Health authority ceased recommending vaccination for 12- to 17-year-olds except under special circumstances. The agency acknowledged that very few healthy children have been affected seriously by the virus.

“Overall, we see that the need for care as a result of COVID-19 has been low among children and young people during the pandemic, and has also decreased since the virus variant omicron began to spread,” Soren Andersson, head of a unit at the Public Health Authority, told broadcaster SVT at the time. “In this phase of the pandemic, we do not see that there is a continued need for vaccination in this group.”

Meanwhile in the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is pushing ahead with vaccinating children, allowing emergency clearance of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna for children as young as just six months old.

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that it is the vaccinated population that made up most of the COVID-19 deaths in August.

During that month, 6,512 deaths were recorded, of which 58.6 percent were attributed to vaccinated or boosted individuals. Back in January, COVID-19 deaths among the vaccinated and boosted had only made up 41 percent of the total mortalities.