LOS ANGELES, March 28 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 30,000 child COVID-19 cases have been reported across the United States in the past week, according to the report published Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children's Hospital Association.

       Reported COVID-19 cases among children spiked dramatically in 2022 during the Omicron variant surge, with over 4.9 million child cases reported since the beginning of January, according to the report.

       Over 12.8 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 since the onset of the pandemic in the country, according to the report. Over 171,000 of these cases have been added in the past 4 weeks.

       Since the first week of September, there have been almost 7.8 million additional child COVID-19 cases, according to the report.

       There is an urgent need to collect more age-specific data to assess the severity of illness related to new variants as well as potential longer-term effects, said the AAP.

       "It is important to recognize there are immediate effects of the pandemic on children's health, but importantly we need to identify and address the long-lasting impacts on the physical, mental, and social well-being of this generation of children and youth," said the AAP.