A 10-year-old Latin boy from East County who died on January 23 is now the youngest COVID-19-related death in the region, according to the latest San Diego County coronavirus screening report released Friday.
It was a day of dark records. In addition to the youngest, a 106-year-old man, also from East County, became the oldest COVID-related local death among the 2,777 announced to date.
Previously, the youngest to suffer such serious consequences after a new coronavirus infection was a 19-year-old man who died on January 3. The previous oldest victim of COVID-19 was a 104-year-old woman from the “north-central” part of the county who died on January 1, according to county records.
Both the older and younger ones would have had other health problems, in addition to a positive test for the virus. Thirty-seven of the 39 deaths announced in Friday’s report had other health problems present.
It was not clear why it took almost two weeks for the 10-year-old boy’s death to be made public. Generally, the county health department said in the past, delays in reporting can be caused by the time it takes to process death certificates or by the delay in a hospital to report the loss to public health.
As always, the county has not released information about the specific circumstances – including other illnesses involved – in the losses. These details are not related to individual deaths for fear that it will make it easier to identify those who died.
Generally, death is very uncommon among those under the age of 18. According to provisional death counts listed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 67 children aged five to 14 years died after a confirmed coronavirus infection among more than 421,000 COVID-related deaths across the country. This number is known to be incomplete, due to reporting delays, sometimes weeks.
While the community continues to record deaths of hospitalized people during the sudden increase in patients in December and January, the local pandemic continues to run well below the totals of previous new daily cases, which reached 4,000 several times after the vacation.
Friday’s report, however, showed a slight increase. After two days below 1,000, the total daily cases was 1,453 on Thursday after counting 1,598 on Wednesday.
Total COVID-related hospitalizations continued to decline, reaching 1,183, with 353 in intensive care beds.