Table 2.

Difference between adults and children with COVID-19

	Adults	Children
Rates of infection	High	Low
Evidence	Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported only 2% of patients younger than 20 years of age among 44,672 cases [20] United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported only 1.7% children less than 18 years of age among 149,082 reported cases [7]
Severity of illness	High	Low
Evidence	Chinese data: 14% of adult patients classified as ‘severe’ and 5% as ‘critical’ disease [20] Italian data: 25% of adult patients classified as ‘severe’ and 5% as ‘critical’ [6]	Chinese data: 5% of pediatric patients classified as ‘severe’ and < 1% as ‘critical’ disease [36] Italian data: 2% of pediatric patients classified as ‘severe’ or ‘critical’ disease [5]
Complications and mortality	High	Low
Evidence	United States data: Among 2634 adults hospitalized adults in 12 hospitals in New York City, 14% required intensive care and 12% received mechanical ventilation with a case fatality rate of 21% [4] Chinese data: Case fatality 2.3% of overall COVID-19 affected population [20] Italian data: Case fatality of overall COVID-19 affected population 7% [6]	United States data: Among 46 North American Pediatric ICUs, only 48 children were admitted to intensive care with a case fatality rate of 4.2% [3] Chinese data: 1 death [36] Italian data: No deaths [5]
Potential risk factors leading to severe disease	Hypertension, diabetes, and obesity [4]	Infants < 1 years of age, medical complexitya, immune suppression, obesity [3, 5]

^aDefined as dependence on technological support (tracheostomy with or without ventilator dependence) in association with developmental delay and/or genetic anomalies