In our research, we define orphanhood as UNICEF does: a child who has lost one or more parents. The World Health Organization estimated there were 14.9 million excess deaths associated with COVID in 20. Various studies have tried to assess whether global COVID reporting is undercounting deaths. Excess deaths are those above what would be expected for a given time period, and these deaths are notoriously hard to estimate. To figure out the number of children orphaned by COVID, we examined estimates of excess deaths for every country in the world.
These first initiatives now need to be followed by global efforts. And earlier this year, the Board of Supervisors of California’s Santa Clara County unanimously approved a program to identify and support youth who lost caregivers to the disease. Mexico provides scholarships to COVID orphans. This has since been widened to more regions. In August 2021 Brazil’s northeastern region launched a similar program to support low-income households. In March 2021 Peru announced a plan to pay just more than $50 per month-the cost of a basic food basket-to children who have lost one or both of their parents to COVID. We believe this sort of care for children must be immediately integrated into every national response plan for combatting COVID and other infectious disease outbreaks.Ĭountries are starting to respond to this call. Third, we have to protect orphaned children using evidence-based strategies that address their increased risks of childhood adversity and violence. Second, we need to prepare safe and loving family-based care through kinship, fostering and adoption.
First, we must prevent the deaths of parents and caregivers through equitable vaccine programs, containment of the disease and treatment. We know from research into the HIV epidemic how to help these children and protect others. They can be at higher risk of violence and abuse. They may have decreased access to food, support and housing. After a caregiver dies, children may experience grief, inadequate care and separations from other family members. In a letter published by JAMA Pediatrics, I and a group of my colleagues estimated that from January 2020 to May 2022, 10.5 million children lost primary or secondary caregivers to COVID-associated deaths.* The toll on these children is enormous. A child whose parent died at the start of the pandemic is still a child without that parent now.
The death of a mother, father, caregiving grandparent or other relative is permanent and enduring. In every country, the number of children affected inexorably rises, month after month. While the deaths of parents and grandparents from COVID crash and recede, the pattern of children affected by orphanhood resulting from the death of a caregiver is entirely different. As an epidemiologist, I am used to studying waves of infection and measuring the rise and fall of deaths.
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