Nearly 14.7 mln U.S. children infected with COVID-19

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Almost 14.7 million children in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic, according to the latest report by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association.

Nearly 321,000 of these cases have been added in the past four weeks. Approximately 6.8 million reported cases have been added in 2022, according to the report published on Tuesday.

For the week ending Sept. 15, child COVID-19 cases accounted for 18.5 percent of all infections reported in the United States. But the reported cases are likely a "substantial undercount" of COVID-19 cases, according to the report.

There is an urgent need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects, said the AAP.

"It is important to recognize there are immediate effects of the pandemic on children's health, but importantly we need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth," said the AAP.