The mortality rate in children would leave us with something like 10k dead kids country-wide if the virus is permitted to spread to everyone.
Mortality isn't the only issue, either. We're seeing plenty of signs some folks survive, but with long-term health impacts.
(An overwhelmed medical system will kill vulnerable kids in non-COVID ways, too. Mortality of things like car accidents and asthma attacks and suicide go up if the ICUs are full.)
I partly believe this is because thus far kids have been mostly shielded - in my experience anyway. Schools and businesses (daycare, etc) closed as the virus gained traction. Now we are opening back up and throwing the kids headfirst into an uncertain future. It is worrisome to say the least.
My niece was born with a defective kidney. Her chances of dialysis grows with every infection... and COVID19 has been shown to cause long-term damage to kidneys and livers.
I'd expect my niece to survive COVID19 if she got it. But I'd also expect her to get significant kidney damage and possibly dialysis as a result. Every UTI she gets results in an emergency room visit under normal circumstances. We've been lucky enough that she hasn't had anything this year, but... she's definitely not someone we'd want to see COVID19 infect.
Not everyone's kids are 100% healthy out there. Keep that in mind. There are mutations out there that are completely silent and hidden, and we try to keep these little facts inside the family.
You're grossly underestimating the prevalence of birth defects that lead to health issues in children.
And adults for that matter. (Any teacher who has a similar immuno-comrpomised situation, or knows of someone similarly immuno-compromised is at risk).
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In any case, I "don't worry" about the potential death of my niece at all. What I care about are the long term health effects on her and her life. And for the long-term health effects of other children too.
This disease has been shown to ravage and disable athletes: destroying their lung function even when they survive. Deaths are hardly endgame: long-term chronic illnesses are still a problem to try to minimize.
In spite of the common idea that schools and young children are germ factories that make adults sick, there's a recent article from the American Academy of Pediatrics that shows children are very rarely the index case for COVID. It's much more likely that she would give it to them, than that they would give it to her.
It's like we're the kid in school who refused to do their work, then has a tempter-tantrum because they have to forgo recess. And much of the EU (and Taiwan, Singapore, HK, etc) are the nerdy kid who finished early and now get to spend the afternoon doing something fun.
