'Risk Is Not Zero': 2-Year-Old Child Dies Of COVID-19 As Global Cases Surge

KEY POINTS

The child is one of four people whose deaths were recorded Monday
The others were aged in their 70s, 80s and 90s
Several countries have yet again reported a surge in daily coronavirus infections

A 2-year-old child, who was "previously well," died from COVID-19 at a hospital in Australia. The death of the child comes as several countries have yet again reported a surge in daily coronavirus infections.

The New South Wales health department said the child died at The Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney's west.

"I express my heartfelt condolences to that family," acting chief health officer Marianne Gale said, according to ABC News. "NSW Health asks everybody to please respect the privacy of this family during this most difficult time."

"One child's death is too many... As a pediatrician, it's always a tragedy when a child dies and the pediatric community cares very deeply," Robert Booy, an infectious diseases pediatrician from Sydney University, said. "The really key point is that the great majority of children under five who get COVID get it mildly or no symptoms at all... This is a disease of older people, of people with chronic medical problems, not a disease which often kills children."

The child is one of four people whose deaths were recorded Monday, the others were aged in their 70s, 80s and 90s.

"Whilst serious illness is very rare, in children, particularly young children, the risk is not zero," Catherine Bennett, an epidemiologist at Deakin University, said, according to The Guardian. "This is a reminder that it's an infection we need to try and avoid as best we can."

There have been 5,730 COVID-related deaths in Australia, but only a small fraction of those were children. On Thursday, New South Wales recorded 20,087 new cases, down by a third from the 30,385 cases reported the day before. A sudden spike in NSW coronavirus cases has eased somewhat. Meanwhile, on Monday, Western Australia reported 5,566 new cases of COVID-19, with a record number of people now in hospital and no deaths.

Driven by the highly infectious Omicron BA.2 variant, the uptick in the numbers has triggered huge concerns. Several countries in Europe are seeing another surge, and early indicators, such as wastewater monitoring, show that cases may start to tick back up in the U.S.