One in five new infections of covid-19 in the first three weeks of October was among children under 9 years of age. This age group registered the 21.2% of cases and a sustained growth in the last three weeks, according to epidemiological update published monthly by the Ministry of Public Health and processed The Observer.
People in that range, even without being vaccinated, head the list of ages that added the most positive cases to the daily count kept by the National Emergency System (Sinae). In the last three epidemiological weeks (from October 3 to 24), depending on how the MSP data was collected, 2,899 infections, of which 614 corresponded to children from 0 to 9 years old.
This population group experienced continuous growth since the first week of October, When i arrive to 180 infections weekly (the week before it had been 98). Since then, the amount grew up until 207 and then rose to 227 weekly. Children under 9 years of age are the only group, according to the MSP age cut-off, which registers three consecutive weeks of increase in cases.
The growth of cases among children had already been pointed out by some experts who also highlighted that there has been no increase in hospitalizations or serious cases in children due to covid-19 in this time. Children under 12 years of age are the only ones who so far cannot be immunized because the vaccines are not approved for that age group.
According to the ministry report, young adults ages 20-29 succeeded the children in second place, with 504 new infections, that is, the 17.4% of the monthly total. They were the seconds that were most infected.
The strip had a slight weekly growth from 161 to 170 infections (+ 5.5%) from the end of September to the beginning of October, which then grew to 200, but finally was relativized in 134.
One notch lower, with 476 cases (16.4% of the monthly total), the adolescents 10 to 19 years, which were mostly infected during the second week of October -179 times-. At first weekly record that month, the group had accumulated 150 people with positive covid and report closuree the figure fell to 147.
People up to 29 years of age had a total of 1,594 infections (55%) in the last three weeks while the rest of the population -Over 30 years- reached 1,305 (45%), according to the data processed by El Observador. Within this second group, the list that discriminates those infected by age range shows that adults aged 30 to 39 years were the ones that contributed the most cases, with 442 (15.2% of the monthly total).
