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MADISON - ST. CLAIR RECORD

Thursday, March 28, 2024

A stunning miscalculation: CDC cuts nation's reported child COVID deaths by nearly 25 percent

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One of the greatest sins of our government’s approach to the COVID pandemic has been its oppressive treatment of children. Lockdowns, remote-learning and other mitigation policies have stunted the mental, physical, social and emotional development of children for two years. Research and coverage from NPR, New York Times, the Atlantic and other media increasingly show the damage to children has been enormous, though we won’t know the full impact for decades.

Kids were forced to endure the worst of the pandemic despite data consistently showing they were at near-zero risk from COVID and that they weren’t much of a danger to anybody else in school settings. The government still wants vaccinations for children under 5 years old. 

Now, it turns out, the CDC overestimated the already-limited danger to children. The agency officially cut the number of nationwide child COVID deaths by 24 percent last week, down to 1,341. The reduction was part of a larger data correction that cut 72,277 deaths from the nationwide COVID death count. The agency blamed its overcounting on a “coding error.” 

It’s yet another mistake that’s bound to reduce what little public confidence remains in the CDC. Unfortunately, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the IDPH have blindly followed the CDC’s guidance throughout most of the pandemic.

The reality is that none of the data the CDC has ever put out justified the harsh restrictions on children. Even the agency’s early data showed that just 1 out of every 34,000 kids under the age of 19 would die from COVID, for a survival rate of 99.997 percent. 

And Illinois’ own historical two-year data for 0 to 19 year olds – 39 COVID deaths in 685,000 cases – shows a case-survivability rate of 99.994 percent.

This latest correction by the CDC should raise questions in the minds of the lawmakers, unions, and officials who whole-heartedly supported the worst restrictions on children.

But we doubt it will.

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