United States: More than 40,000 children lost their …

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study published Monday in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics, more than 40,000 boys and girls in the United States have lost their father or mother. This situation, the survey reveals, is particularly detrimental to “black boys, who have been disproportionately affected.”

The number of children who have experienced the death of a parent from COVID-19, according to the study, led by Dr Rachel Kidman of Stony Brook University, “is staggering”, with an estimated total of between 37,000 and 43,000.

“Black boys have been disproportionately affected, constituting 14% of children in the United States and 20% of them have lost a parent to covid-19“, detailed the investigation.

To arrive at the number of children affected by each adult killed by coronavirus, the study authors applied an index called father sorrow multiplier. According to this calculation, each death from covid-19 leaves 0.078 boys between 0 and 17 years old in paternal grief “, which represents a 17.5-20.2% increase of paternal mourning multiplier in the absence of coronavirus “.

While the paternal mourning multiplier may seem small, specialists have cautioned in this regard, the sum after one year of coronavirus provides a high number: “As of February 2021, at least 37,300 children had lost a parent to COVID-19, three-quarters of which were adolescents. “the researchers wrote.

The study, they said, is based on a statistical projection, not on official research or data, and does not include the loss of primary caregivers of children other than their parents.