The Overseas Situation Report Tuesday 1 March 2022

by Mike Evans

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to change the narrative in our country away from divisiveness towards shared hope” 

Dr. Susan Hillis, Senior Research Officer, Oxford University

As the world’s attention is now focused on the attack on Ukraine by Russian forces you could be forgiven to think that the pandemic has gone away. True, the number of cases is dropping across the world. In the past week there has been a drop of 16% in new reported cases and a drop of 18% in deaths across the world.

However, there were still around 10.6 million new cases reported across the world in the past week, so it is not going away anytime soon.

While the situation in Ukraine is taking all the headlines there are still many stories around covid which have left an impact on so many people around the world. One such issue is something we have written about before but the latest research from the Lancet shows a much bigger impact than first thought. We are talking about how children have been affected by losing a parent or caregiver to the virus.

Approximately 5.2 million children have lost a parent or caregiver during the pandemic, according to a new study published in The Lancet medical journal recently.

An analysis by the same team of researchers in July 2021 had estimated 1.5 million children were orphaned during the first 14-months of the pandemic, meaning they lost at least one parent. But with new variants and a rising death count, the researchers said they felt compelled to re-evaluate the analysis.

Between May 2021 and October 2021, deaths globally nearly doubled compared to the months prior, a jump attributed predominantly to the Delta variant. This new study estimates that approximately 5.2 million children are experiencing COVID-related orphanhood.

“What we found was shocking,” said Dr. Susan Hillis, the study’s lead author and a senior research officer at Oxford University, who completed this work while at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

The number of children who lost at least one parent at the end of the first 20-months of the pandemic was greater than the total number of COVID deaths, and this gap is increasing, according to the study.

Children aged 10 through 17 were more likely to have lost a parent, with 2.1 million children affected. Still, over 490,000 children between ages 0 and 4, and 750,000 children between ages 5 and 10 lost a parent or caregiver.

Among all children, 3 out of every 4 lost a father, which is even more significant in low-income countries where the father is more likely to be the primary earner.

“COVID-related orphanhood does not come in waves,” Hillis said. “It is a steadily rising slope with the summit still out of our sight.” Although many may recover from an infection, losing a parent is not something that can be easily recovered from, she said.

“These are 5 million kids in one generation that will be living the rest of their lives in a very different way, and this affects us all,” said Dr. Natasha Burgert, a paediatrician and spokesperson for the American Academy of Paediatrics. Burgert was not involved with the study.

As part of their work, Hillis and her team said they developed a real-time calculator to predict loss of parent or caregiver by current mortality data for every country in the world. By the end of January 2022, the estimate had risen to 6.7 million children worldwide affected by COVID orphanhood, according to the research. In the United States, the researchers estimate over 149,000 children have lost a parent or caregiver.

However, despite these staggering numbers, Hillis says there is hope.

For the last 20 years, the U.S. government has been investing in evidence-based programs to ensure orphaned and highly vulnerable children affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic could be protected and supported to reach their potential, the researchers noted.

“We actually know the models that work,” Hillis says. “We have an opportunity to lead by example.”

Experts say these findings underscore the importance of vaccinating adults across the globe. “Vaccines are keeping people alive in the face of this terrible virus and keeping families whole,” says Burgert.

While authors continue to call for equitable access to vaccines and treatment globally, the millions of children already orphaned still need support, they said.

“We need to be supporting our childcare centres, local schools and larger university systems with the resources needed to create a cushion of support and a safe place for social-emotional learning,” says Burgert. “Educators, counsellors, administrators, physicians and legislators need to be preparing for the upcoming impact, and they will need everyone’s help.”

The CDC, WHO and many top experts around the world have agreed to the importance of adding an additional pillar to the world-wide COVID response: Caring for and protecting these children.

There is currently no governmental funding in the United States aimed at acknowledging and protecting these children in their hidden pandemic, the researchers noted.

“We have an unprecedented opportunity to change the narrative in our country away from divisiveness towards shared hope,” says Hillis. “It is a moral imperative for us to do what we know works to help the ones at home and to encourage every country in the world to do the same.”

Within the same report some interesting facts were detailed. Peru had the highest rate of orphanhood cases per capita with eight out of every 1,000 children affected followed by South Africa.

In Peru the covid 19 virus killed at least one parent or primary caregiver for nearly 100,000 children in Peru, the country with the world’s highest coronavirus death rate. “Unfortunately, our country has almost 98,000 children who lost their father, mother or guardian during the pandemic,” said Peru’s Minister of Women Anahi Durand, citing figures published in the medical journal The Lancet. Peru leads the world in overall Covid deaths per capita, with more than 6,000 Peruvians per million having died from the disease, according to an AFP analysis of official figures.

In all 20 countries studied, children were more than three times more likely to have lost a father than a mother. The report also suggested that older children were affected more than younger children, with adolescents aged 10-17 accounting for almost two out of three children who lost a parent to COVID-19.

In California, A bill introduced in the California Legislature last month seeks to give children who are in this situation some hope for a better future, and one children welfare policy expert told ABC News this legislation could serve as a blueprint for the rest of the country. Under California state Sen. Nancy Skinner’s Hope, Opportunity, Perseverance, and Empowerment (HOPE) for Children Act, children who lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19 and are in the state’s foster care system or a low-income household would be eligible for a state-funded trust fund.

Speaking in an interview with the broadcaster ABC News, Skinner said there is a great need for this program since data has shown a large number of COVID-19 orphans were of low-income families who didn’t have options such as life insurance to provide for their loved ones after they died.

“Those children would be in an especially vulnerable situation when they’re adults and on their own,” she said. Over 200,000 Americans under 18 have lost a parent or adult caregiver to COVID-19, according to research released by the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, up from 140,000 in October.

Skinner’s office estimates that 20,000 Californian children have lost their parents or caregiver to the virus so far. They are working to ascertain exactly how many of those children are in the California foster system.

If the bill passes, the state will make an initial deposit of $4,000 for eligible children under 10 and $8,000 for eligible children over 10. Annual deposits would continue with an amount that will be later determined, and the state would handle the investment options, according to the bill’s current language.

Once the eligible children turn 18 or 21, depending on their status in the foster care system, they would be able to withdraw the funds from the HOPE account.

“The money wouldn’t be available to them now, but the very presence would ensure that they have some financial wellness when they are adults,” Skinner said.

Skinner said her office is still determining the income thresholds for eligible COVID-19 orphans not in the foster care system, though she is considering using the same income requirements used for MediCal, the state’s Medicaid system.

She noted that data shows the majority of the state’s COVID-19 orphans are children of colour.The program will be paid for using taxpayer money already in the state budget and would not seek tax increases, Skinner said.

The bill also seeks to create a California survivor benefit program that would create a cash benefit for minors who aren’t eligible for other forms of financial assistance, such as Social Security, when their parent or caregiver dies.

AS we begin to see the end of this pandemic, we should all be mindful that for many the memories will never go away of losing loved ones.

Until the next time stay safe.

Total Cases Worldwide – 436,400,525

Total Deaths Worldwide – 5,970,270

Total Recovered Worldwide – 367,091,218 

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 63,339,037 (14.5 % of the total cases) 

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 373,061,488

Information and Resources:

https://www.worldometer.info/coronavirus/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/weekly-trends/#countries

https://www.thelancet.com/

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