September was the country’s worst month for new COVID-19 cases and deaths among children as kids returned to the classroom, federal data shows.
The worrying trend comes as government officials appear poised to approve a vaccination for children under 12 in the coming weeks.
More than 6 million kids have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic started, but a startling 1.1 million of those cases were recorded between Sept. 3 and Sept. 30, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
An extremely small proportion of children who contract the virus go on to die, and children account for less than 1 percent of all COVID-19 deaths, according to the CDC.
However, fatalities among Americans younger than 15 also plateaued last month with 41 deaths recorded between Sept. 4 and Oct. 2, NBC News reported.
An FDA advisory committee is scheduled to discuss the authorization of a vaccine for children ages 5-11 on Oct. 26, after Pfizer and BioNTech requested emergency use authorization for their inoculation.