“The epidemic continues to worsen” … As every evening, the Director General of Health, Jérome Salomon, gravely dismissed the national assessment of the epidemic of coronavirus. But this Thursday, for the first time, her announcement did not quite resemble the others, since among the 365 deaths recorded in the hospital in 24 hours, there is now a young girl of 16, from Ile-de-France -France.
A statement that throws a chill since we thought the youngest more spared from serious cases. However, according to the report of the joint China-WHO mission, published at the end of February, even if only 2.4% of the more than 75,000 cases then confirmed in China concerned individuals under the age of 18, some minors (a very small share) had developed a severe (2.5%) or even critical (0.2%) form of the disease. In the state, medical secrecy obliges, the general direction of Health refused to say more on the possible symptoms from which the young woman suffered.
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According to the latest data published by Santé Publique France (figures as of March 15), the under-15s represented 2% of confirmed cases (126 out of 6,087) and around 1% of cases in intensive care (3 out of 285).
While among our Italian neighbors, figures (arrested on March 20) from the Higher Institute of Health show that no one under the age of 30 has died from the coronavirus in the country. “There are no victims or serious cases” among the infected children in Italy, said on March 19 the president of the Italian Pediatric Society, Alberto Villani, quoted by the Ansa news agency.
In Spain, the second most affected country in Europe after Italy, no death had been recorded on March 22 among 0-9 year olds, according to figures from the Spanish Ministry of Health.
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