More than 140,000 children under the age of 18 lost a parent or significant caregiver to COVID-19 between April, 2020 and June, 2021 in the U.S., according to a report released by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday. While studies of mortality from COVID-19 by age are scanty, one such study details deaths among the prime working and family building aged populations globally. Authors separated countries into three groups by the proportion of COVID-19 deaths. The U.S. is in the middle group, along with odd bedfellows: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Romania. The first group included all countries in Western Europe and Canada where the proportion of deceased under 60 ranged from 5-13% but none from Latin America. In the second group the deceased under the age of 60 ranged from 18-25%.
The study also found correlations between quality universal health coverage and the proportion of deceased under 60 years of age. Nine out of ten countries (excluding Canada) in the Americas had a Gini index higher than 0.40, reflecting “important social inequalities” – and explaining the higher mortality in the U.S. and Latin America compared with Western Europe and Canada where universal healthcare is prevalent. Further, the study found that the U.S. states that experienced a surge in cases in the second wave, such as Florida and Texas, mortality was higher for those under 64 years of age than in Western Europe and Canada.
As deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S. continue to march beyond 700,000, we consider the impact of losing so many working-age adults and parents of the next generation of kids. What kind of pressure might this place on counties that are responsible for social welfare and on school districts that are managing through re-opening but have students with minimal care outside schools?
Further, stresses on the US healthcare system are spilling over in some unusual ways. At the end of August, the mayor of Orlando, Florida urged residents to cut back on water usage since the surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations required a diversion of liquid oxygen to treat the sick. Orlando uses liquid oxygen to treat its water supply. The three-county area around Tampa (Tampa Bay Water) has also changed how it treats treated its water and noted a delay in delivery of liquid oxygen. Tampa Bay Times reported a survey by the Florida Hospital Association that 68 hospitals statewide had less than a two-day supply of oxygen with half of those having about 36-hour supply.
In Texas, a Gulf Coast refinery temporarily shut a portion of its process due to shortage of oxygen that was diverted to medical use amid a surge in COVID-19 cases in that state, according to Bloomberg.com. South Carolina and Louisiana have also been mentioned at risk of oxygen supply shortage. The ICU medical director of Jupiter Medical Center commented that in this wave of Delta virus, they are seeing younger patients – 30, 40 and 50-year olds (all unvaccinated), corroborating the age study mentioned above.
