Number of children murdered in US soared in Covid-19 pandemic’s first year

NEW YORK - As the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the United States in 2020, the number of children who were killed rose precipitously, as did the number injured by firearms, scientists reported in two studies Monday.

A majority of the homicides were among Black children, and almost half were among children in the southern United States. Each of those groups also accounted for most of the children brought to paediatric hospitals with gun injuries.

The rate of child homicide in the US rose by about 28 per cent in 2020, from 2.2 per 100,000 in 2019 to 2.8 per 100,000 in 2020, researchers at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found.

Homicide is the leading cause of death among American children, making the US an outlier among similarly developed nations, where car accidents, cancer and other illnesses and injuries are the top causes of death.

About half of those are caused by firearms. But younger children are more likely to be killed by physical assaults than by firearms, including beatings or attacks with sharp objects or blunt instruments.

Gun homicides have also risen greatly

among children in recent years. In a review of recent data on firearms, The New York Times reported last week that gun homicides involving children had increased by more than 73 per cent since 2018 and that the disparity in risk between Black children and others was rapidly widening.

The authors of the new study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, said the data highlighted a public health concern “warranting immediate attention”.

Child homicides are “fundamentally preventable,” yet they are becoming “more common, not less”, an accompanying editorial said.

Overall, older children and boys of all ages were more likely to be victims of gun violence than younger children and girls.

A research letter by paediatric surgeons at University of Utah School of Medicine was also published in JAMA Pediatrics on Monday. That study compared the number of children coming into the nation’s paediatric hospitals for care during two 21-month periods, one of them leading up to the pandemic and the other starting in April 2020, as the pandemic was gaining traction.

The number of children seeking care for gun injuries increased to 2,759 during the second 21-month period, up from 1,815 during the first period, an increase of just over 50 per cent. NYTIMES