New Study Shows COVID Poses Exceptionally Low Risks to Kids, Further Discrediting School Closures

COVID policies on schools and children were even less defensible than originally believed, according to a new study.

The study, which was published by the JAMA Network, showed that kids are more than 100 times less likely to die from COVID than adults.

It also found that mortality rates by age group were astonishingly low. For infants under the age of 1, COVID death rates were 4.3 deaths per 100,000. Amongst those aged 1 to 4 years, rates were 0.6 per 100,000. For 5 to 9 year olds, it was 0.4 per 100,000. 0.5 per 100,000 for 10 to 14 year olds, and 1.8 per 100,000 in those aged 15 to 19 years.

Overall, that translates to a rate of 1 per 100,000 from August 2021 through July 2022. During that time period, there were 821 COVID deaths where the disease was the underlying cause.

To put some context to just how low those numbers are, there were more than 360,000 COVID deaths in the U.S. from August 2021 to July 2022. That meant a rate of 109 per 100,000 people, compared to 1 per 100,000 in children and younger age groups.

Yet teacher's unions, experts, politicians and the media did their best to ensure schools would close and remain closed.

In some parts of the country, masks have become a recurring, potentially permanent part of in person schooling. Despite being entirely discredited as a useful intervention.

READ: NEW STUDY CONFIRMS THAT MASKS LIKELY DON’T WORK TO STOP COVID

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 11: Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, speaks during a March for Our Lives rally against gun violence on the National Mall June 11, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

COVID Never Posed Much Danger

Beyond the fact that the absolute rates are small, COVID also pales as a cause of death when compared to other causes.

According to the study, suicide caused 6.8% of deaths in these age groups, 6.9% were from assault, and 18.4% were from unintentional injuries. COVID, by comparison, was responsible for just 2% of deaths.

That meant the disease ranked just eighth out of all causes of death amongst children.

Visually, it's apparent that the disease has never been a significant threat to younger people.

Even the above data includes deaths that were not directly caused by COVID. Yet it still represents a tiny fraction of all those that occurred over the past several years.

Yet though the study confirmed that COVID was a much smaller danger to children than unintentional injuries, assault or suicide, the authors ignored their own conclusions.

Instead of celebrating that the risks of the virus to children are thankfully minimal, they call for further restrictions.

In their summary of the findings, they write that "COVID-19 posed a significant disease burden for children and young people, so pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions continue to be important to limit transmission of the virus and to mitigate severe disease."

That "significant disease burden" was more than 3x lower than from suicide or assault. And 2% of deaths is just 1/9th the rate of deaths from unintentional injuries.

The refusal to accept that the virus wasn't a significant threat to kids has been a long-standing feature of pandemic discussions.

Apoorva Mandavilli, who's a "science and global health" writer for The New York Times, once celebrated that people were "finally accepting" her activism attempting to scare parents about the risks of COVID to kids.

Adults Hurt Kids Needlessly

There are hundreds of such examples. Politicians, experts, the media, teacher's unions and local administrators collaborated to ensure schools closed and stayed closed.

Teacher's unions even claimed that the push to open schools was based on "racism" and "misogyny."

Even once open, they demanded useless policies like universal masking continue to be enforced.

Meanwhile, learning losses rapidly accumulated, leading to horrific statistics on the likely impact of closures and "mitigations."

READ: SCHOOL CLOSURES COULD LEAD TO $28 TRILLION IN ECONOMIC LOSSES

All for a disease that posed an extraordinarily low risk to the age group most affected by restrictions.

There must be accountability for those who pushed for these measures, while ignoring the evidence contradicting their assertions.

Many still believe demonstrable falsehoods, because the media privileged certain "experts" over others, creating a false consensus.

COVID was never much of a danger to children. But the unnecessary fears, anxieties, partisan misinformation and activism of teacher's unions certainly was.