Fewer than one in 10 young children with symptomatic COVID-19 develop severe symptoms requiring admission to ICU, an Australian-led review shows.

Researchers from UNSW Sydney and international colleagues also note that some children classified as having moderate disease might have been hospitalised because of isolation requirements rather than the severity of their disease. 

The findings, published in Vaccine, follow reports that more than two million children in the US have been diagnosed with COVID-19, representing about 12% of all cases in the country.

In a systematic review and meta-analysis of 65 studies, the team analysed data from 1214 children aged younger than five with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 to determine the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of the infection in this age group.