The Pandemic Within the Pandemic: 5 Million COVID-19 Orphans
Adin James of Fresno, Texas, is only 8 years old, but he has some very strict rules about how the world should work in the age of the pandemic. For starters, there’s the business of avoiding unmasked people.
“They don’t have their masks on,” he’ll tell his mother Ebony, a middle school principal, when he sees an uncovered face on the street or in a store. “That’s not right. They’re making other people sick.”
Then there’s the rule about spraying the room before bed. Ever since Adin’s father Terrence died on Feb. 19, Adin, the youngest of three children, has been sleeping in his mother’s room. But that was where his father slept—which means that was the room where COVID-19 once lived.
“Is it safe?” Adin will ask Ebony. “Is it safe?” She will promise him that it is, but he won’t believe it until she sprays the room with Lysol. And even then he’s not convinced that his world is not a place of mortal menace.
Adin is just one of more than 140,000 U.S. children who have lost a parent or caregiving grandparent during the course of the pandemic, according to a new study in Pediatrics. And those numbers, terrible as they are, are dwarfed by the estimated 5 million children worldwide who have suffered a similar loss.
In the U.S., the great orphaning is not hitting all demographic groups equally. For every one white American child orphaned, 1.8 Hispanic American children, 2.4 Black Americans and 4.5 Native Americans and Native Alaskans were struck.
“We were already aware that minorities were disproportionately affected by COVID-19 mortality,” says Alexandra Blenkinsop of Imperial College London, a co-author of the Pediatrics paper. “However, we were surprised by the degree to which these inequalities were magnified when looking at children losing their caregivers. Minorities represent only 39% of the U.S. population, so to find 65% of children orphaned were of a racial or ethnic minority group is one of the most profound disparities we’re aware of.”
The emotional and developmental blowback that children suffer after losing a parent can be severe—including lower educational attainment, slower brain development and a higher risk of mental health disorders and substance abuse. There are also longer-term dangers that orphaned children face.
“As the number of adverse events the child is exposed to increases,” says Susan Hillis, lead author of the study and a researcher at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “the risk of every major cause of death in adulthood increases—cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, suicide. It’s just really shocking how related those adverse childhood experiences are to adult death.”
The longer COVID-19 burns, the more parents it’s going to claim—and the more the population of pandemic orphans will grow. Children may be the one group hit least hard by the virus itself, but they’re also the one that pays the highest price in the loss of the grownups around whom their small and fragile worlds are supposed to orbit.
Nearly 521.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been shipped to various U.S. states as of this morning, of which more than 423.9 million doses have been administered thus far, according to TIME's vaccine tracker. About 58.1% of Americans have been completely vaccinated.
More than 248 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and about 5 million people have died. On Nov. 3, there were 517,246 new cases and 8,292 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 5 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 46.2 million coronavirus cases as of 9:30 a.m. E.T. today. More than 750,000 people have died. On Nov. 3, there were 83,501 new cases and 1,905 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Nov. 4, 11 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
What Else to Know
The economy continues its recovery as the U.S. Department of Labor today reported that just 269,000 Americans applied for unemployment benefits in the past week, a pandemic-era low. The figure was 14,000 fewer than the previous week’s total. Overall, reports the Associated Press, 2.1 million Americans are receiving unemployment benefits, a dramatic improvement over the 7.1 million just a year ago. The economy has now recovered 17 million of the 22 million jobs it lost beginning in February 2020, when the pandemic began surging in the U.S.
The United Kingdom today became the first country to approve the antiviral medication molnupiravir to battle COVID-19 infection, reports Reuters. British health officials recommended that the pill, jointly developed by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, be taken immediately after a positive COVID-19 test or within five days of the onset of symptoms. The move to approve molnupiravir comes as the U.K. battles a fresh surge in the pandemic, with a seven-day average of 40,000 cases, second only to the U.S. total of 74,000. American health officials are meeting this month to decide whether to approve the drug here.
A new weapon in the fight against the pandemic is being rolled out elsewhere too, as the World Health Organization (WHO) announcedit had given emergency use authorization to the India-made vaccine Covaxin, reports Reuters. WHO regulators recommended two doses of the shot four weeks apart for people 18 and older. Covaxin, which has been shown to be 78% effective against severe COVID-19 infection, had already been approved for emergency use in India, but the new move makes it available worldwide and also allows Indians who have received the shot to travel outside of the country.
The White House today announced that large companies have until Jan. 4 to ensure that all of their workers are fully vaccinated, reports The New York Times. The ruling, which affects 84 million private sector workers, follows President Joe Biden’s September announcement requiring full vaccinations for all companies that employ 100 or more people. The new deadline also applies to an additional 17 million workers at health care facilities receiving Medicare or Medicaid funding.
New York City may be moving in the opposite direction of the Biden Administration as Mayor-elect Eric Adams announced that he would revisit existing vaccine mandates for municipal employees, reports the Washington Post. Adams, who won a landslide election on Tuesday, did not specify exactly what steps he would take to roll back the vaccine requirements. But during the campaign he said he would be willing to meet with noncompliant police officers and firefighters to reach an agreement or accommodation.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Angela Haupt.
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