COVID-19 in Children & Young People

The global COVID-19 pandemic has affected many thousands of children and young people in Australia and New Zealand. International data shows that children typically experience only mild symptoms from COVID-19 infection, even when they have an underlying health condition.

CHA collects data from the majority of Children’s Hospitals and Paediatric Units about the number and illnesses of children they care for.  Relatively few children or young people have required hospital admissions for symptoms of the virus and fewer still have required intensive care.  Compared with many other developed nations, Australia and New Zealand have been fortunate to limit the direct impacts on children of COVID-19 infection.   

Since March 2020, CHA has been actively supporting member health services to share learnings and strategies related to responding to the pandemic.  This has included opportunities to network among peers about a wide range of topics ranging from infection control and PPE training, to maintaining staff wellbeing, caring for vulnerable children with hospitalised parents, and much else besides.  The many resources and presentations shared are available in the COVID-19 & Children’s Services forum in our online members community (you must be logged into your account to access these conversations). 

As vaccination programs have been extended to adolescents, and more recently to primary school aged children, hospitalisation associated with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19 are becoming even less likely.   

For more information on COVID-19 in children, signs, symptoms, vaccination and more see:  

To find out more about our Benchmarking Program

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