2022 in review: The year in pediatric COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its 4th year, its effect on children continues to be widely studied.

We compiled a list of pediatric COVID-19 stories reported over the course of the past year.

AAP decries Florida plan not to recommend COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children

The AAP reiterated its support for pediatric COVID-19 vaccination after Florida’s surgeon general said that the state would recommend against it. Read more.

MIS-C risk after COVID-19 vaccination falls to one in a million, study finds

A study in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health found that the risk of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, became “substantially lower” following a COVID-19 vaccination. Read more.

COVID-19 vaccines arrive for young children

Around 18 months after the first adults began receiving COVID-19 vaccines in the United States, the FDA authorized and the CDC-recommended vaccines for children as young as age 6 months. Read more.

CDC recommends Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents

In August, the CDC recommended Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine for use in adolescents aged 12 to 17 years, the first non-messenger RNA vaccine recommended for the age group in the U.S. Read more.

Estimated 7.5 million children orphaned due to COVID-19

Researchers estimated that 10.5 million children globally have lost a caregiver to COVID-19, including 7.5 million who were orphaned after losing a parent or primary caregiver. Co-authors H. Juliette T. Unwin, PhD, a research fellow at Imperial College London and Joël-Pascal Ntwali N’konzi, MSc, a mathematician at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Kigali, Rwanda, discussed the data. Read more.

FDA authorizes Moderna, Pfizer’s bivalent omicron boosters for children, adolescents

Moderna applied for and received authorizations on its request for a 50 µg dose for adolescents aged 12 to 17 years, and another emergency use authorization request on a 25 µg dose for children aged 6 to 11 years. Pfizer’s booster, which is already recommended for children aged 12 years and older, was authorized for children aged 5 to 11 years. Its adapted vaccine targets the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 and the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants but in a 10 µg dose — one-third the size of the vaccine recommended for the older age group. Read more.

COVID-19 cases spiked in schools that lifted mask mandates, study finds

Boston-area school districts that lifted mask mandates earlier this year experienced nearly 45 more cases of COVID-19 per 1,000 students and staff than school districts that kept their mandates in place, a study found. Read more.

FDA authorizes omicron boosters for young children

The FDA expanded its emergency use authorization of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech’s omicron-targeting bivalent COVID-19 boosters to include children aged as young as 6 months in the United States. Read more.

CDC updates case definition for MIS-C

The CDC and Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists published a revised case definition of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, a potentially serious complication of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Read more.

Myopericarditis incidence related to COVID-19 vaccination remains low in young people

The incidence of myopericarditis among adolescents and young adults who received messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccines is very low, according to a systemic review and meta-analysis published in JAMA Pediatrics. Read more.