covid-19 children

How likely are children to end up in hospital because of Covid? And how many have died?

We scrutinise some scary stats that have been circulating on social and examine what excess deaths figures tell us about the risks of Covid compared to other illnesses.

Plus, with the gift of hindsight, we examine the joys and sorrows of modelling the spread of the virus. Do MPs understand how false positive rates work? And we unwrap the mystery of the nanomoles.

The end of summer 2021 has been earmarked as the time by which most American adults will be vaccinated. But still remaining is the often-overlooked question of vaccinations for children, who make up around a quarter of the U.S. population.

Without the immunization of children, herd immunity cannot be reached.

Today, we ask when America’s children will be vaccinated.

Guest: Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and global health reporter for The New York Times. 

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Background reading: 

• Pfizer and Moderna have begun testing their vaccines on children 12 and older. The vaccine for kids is coming, but not for many months.
• New research has cast doubt on the idea that prior infections with garden-variety coronaviruses might shield some people, particularly children, from the pandemic.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

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