Department of Pediatrics, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea.
Department of Pediatrics, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
J Korean Med Sci. 2022 May 2;37(17):e124. doi: 10.3346/jkms.2022.37.e124.
The epidemiology of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has changed continuously throughout the pandemic.
We analyzed changes in the incidence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection according to the age group in South Korea from February 2020 to December 2021.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the incidence among adults aged ≥ 18 years was higher than all the other age groups in 2020; however, a shift toward younger ages occurred in June 2021. In addition, we found significant changes in epidemiology after the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in adults aged ≥ 18 and children 12-17 years. Until recently, children were not regarded as the drive for the pandemic; however, children aged 5-11 and 0-4 years had the highest incidence among all the age groups.
Therefore, policies for clinical support for an increase in COVID-19 cases among young children and age-specific preventive measures are needed.
2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）的流行病学在整个大流行期间不断变化。
我们根据韩国 2020 年 2 月至 2021 年 12 月的年龄组分析了严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2（SARS-CoV-2）感染发病率的变化。
自 COVID-19 大流行以来，2020 年≥18 岁成年人的发病率高于所有其他年龄组；然而，2021 年 6 月这种情况向年轻人群转移。此外，我们发现 SARS-CoV-2 疫苗在≥18 岁成年人和 12-17 岁儿童中接种后，流行病学发生了显著变化。直到最近，儿童还不被认为是大流行的驱动因素；然而，5-11 岁和 0-4 岁的儿童在所有年龄组中发病率最高。
因此，需要制定针对年轻儿童 COVID-19 病例增加的临床支持政策和特定年龄组的预防措施。
