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Coronavirus: 2-month-old dies of COVID-19 in Michigan

A 2-month-old child died this week in Michigan after contracting a coronavirus infection, state health officials said.

“I was so saddened to hear this week of a 2-month-old baby in Michigan who died because of COVID-19 and my condolences go out to their parents and family,” Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, Michigan’s chief medical executive, said Wednesday at a news conference.

The child is the youngest person known to have died of the viral infection in Michigan, Bob Wheaton, public information officer for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, told MLive.

More than 549,000 American children have contracted COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, representing 10% of all cases reported nationwide as of Sept. 10, according to data compiled by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Children accounted for less than 1% of all reported COVID-19 deaths, officials said.

Still, Khaldun noted Wednesday that “children are not spared from this disease.”

“Studies show that while children are less likely to get severely ill from COVID-19, they still can, and they can pass it on to others,” she said.

As of Thursday, the last date for which data was available, more than 114,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported across Michigan, resulting in 6,632 deaths.

The United States leads the world with the most coronavirus cases and the highest death toll. Since the start of the pandemic, officials have confirmed more than 6.6 million infections and reported more than 197,000 deaths nationwide, according to numbers compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

As of Friday, more than 30.2 million COVID-19 cases have been reported worldwide and more than 946,000 people have died of the viral infection, according to Johns Hopkins.