SANTA ANA, Calif. (KNX) — Two teenage residents of Orange County, a 15-year-old and 17-year-old, died in February from complications related to COVID-19, according to O.C. Health Care Agency officials.
The father of the 17-year-old, who was a student at San Juan Hills High School, told CBS L.A. his daughter died from multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which has been connected to COVID-19. He urged young people to get vaccinated, which he said his daughter refused to do.
Details surrounding the death of the 15-year-old were not available. Next of kin did not give public health officials to make the information public.
Three other pediatric COVID-19 deaths were reported in O.C. in Aug. 2020, Sep. 2021, and Jan. 2022.
Health experts have said children and youths are usually at a lower risk than people of other ages to experience serious complications or death related to COVID-19. But the Omicron variant hit younger people harder than previous variants of the virus.
“During the surge of omicron we really saw more illness in kids and more severe disease in kids,” Dr. Matt Zahn, the O.C. Health Care Agency’s deputy health officer, said on Tuesday.
