COVID-19 Outbreak Information Updates (Reboot) [over 150.000,000 US cases (est.), 6,422,520 US hospitilizations, 1,148,691 US deaths.]

……Her children joined an estimated 245,000 children across the US who have lost one or both parents to Covid and an estimated 10.5 million Covid orphans worldwide, according to the Global Reference Group on Children Affected by Covid-19, an international consortium studying the issue, and the London-based medical journal BMJ.

Many have complex needs that cut across bureaucratic silos – from grief counseling, mental health support and school transitions to formalizing a grandparent’s guardianship or securing public benefits.

But despite the profound implications for these children, their families and their communities, Covid orphans have been largely overlooked in policy responses to the pandemic, according to people working on the issue.

‘Everybody’s tired of talking about Covid’​

In February, an advisory board in California began working on designing the most ambitious response in the US to date, a $100m fund that will be disbursed to Covid orphans (as well as children who have been in foster care) meeting certain requirements when they turn 18 – including being from low-income families.

But the California program, called Hope, for Hope, Opportunity, Perseverance, and Empowerment, has not been replicated elsewhere in the US, and although President Joe Biden underscored the urgency of caring for children orphaned by Covid in May of last year, the federal government has yet to address the issue directly with national policies or programs……..


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/08/covid-orphans-us?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other