She was the third Minnesota child to die of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota who leads the university’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said that severe cases of COVID-19 in children are still rare. According to state Health Department data, kids younger than 15 make up about 9% of all of Minnesota’s COVID-19 cases. “I don’t want to diminish the fact that we are not seeing widespread serious illness in young kids,” Osterholm said. “We surely have a number of them that are seriously ill. But they probably typify the very worst in this pandemic in that regard.”