{"doi":"10.18632/aging.203442","title":"COVID-19 mortality rate in children is U-shaped","abstract":"Children are known to be better protected from COVID-19 than adults, but their susceptibility patterns and the risk relative to other diseases are insufficiently defined. Here, we found that the COVID-19 mortality rate is U-shaped in childhood: it initially decreases, reaching the minimum at the ages 3-10 years, and then increases throughout life. All-cause mortality and mortality from other diseases, such as pneumonia and influenza, show a similar pattern; however, childhood mortality rates from COVID-19 are considerably lower than from other diseases, with the best relative protection achieved at the youngest ages. Consistent with this, the fraction of COVID-19 deaths among all deaths increases as a function of age throughout childhood and the entire life. We discuss implications of the elevated postnatal COVID-19 risk and lower childhood COVID-19 mortality compared to other diseases.","journal":"Aging","year":2021,"id":170264,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":28,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9576,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":245603,"name":"Didac Santesmasses","orcid":"0000-0003-3398-8943","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":551988,"name":"Csaba Kerepesi","orcid":"0000-0001-9541-246X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":218504,"name":"Vadim N. Gladyshev","orcid":"0000-0002-0372-7016","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":703030,"name":"Nina Khera","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":25,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:46:19.728805Z","pmid":"34411000","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}