What scientists know this far about the consequences of coronavirus on children

What scientists know this far about the consequences of coronavirus on children

What scientists know this far about the consequences 

of coronavirus on children

At first it had been only elderly people. The narrative about coronavirus, fanned by the small print of each sad death announced, was that the virus was mainly a priority for those over 70, or people with serious underlying health conditions. These were the groups initially urged to socially distance themselves. 

But we’re starting to see that coronavirus can make some younger people seriously ill. Crucially, although the bulk of younger people and youngsters will develop symptoms little worse than flu, they might be invisible carriers of the virus – and play a key role in its spread.

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Once you can’t easily tell if someone features a cold or coronavirus, infection control is way harder 

Compared to other European countries, the united kingdom was slow in closing schools – waiting until there had already been 104 deaths thanks to coronavirus to require action. 

Studies from China showed children were rarely diagnosed with novel coronavirus, and thus presumably had little role within the spread of the disease.

But most of the diagnostic efforts in China, especially within the early phases of the outbreak, were heavily skewed towards hospital admissions. 

The bulk of hospitalised cases involved adult patients. Did this mean that children and children weren’t infected, or merely that they suffered more mild symptoms, which were going undetected?

Like many of my colleagues, I could see no obvious reason why children weren’t being infected: this was an epidemic spread by the respiratory route, not through a process unique to adults. 

If significant numbers of youngsters were infected and suffered very minor cold-like symptoms, then their potential to spread the virus was immense.

One of the key differences between the novel coronavirus and Sars and Mers is that folks with Covid-19 may have only mild symptoms – making it harder to detect. With Sars, most of the people infected quickly developed pneumonia. 

Identifying and isolating people with severe symptoms may be a relatively easy task, and this made infection control through case identification and get in touch with tracing comparatively easy.

The current coronavirus is different. in additional than 85% of confirmed cases symptoms can go undetected or be easily confused with the cold of mild flu. 

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Its biggest weapon – the thing that has, consistent with one study, allowed it to spread so easily – is that this ability to cause mild disease within the majority of individuals it infects. 

Once you can’t easily tell if someone features a cold or coronavirus, case identification and infection control are much more difficult.

Far from being uninfected by this virus, children could actually be its unseen carriers, important links in community transmission chains. 

But there’s still a crucial piece of the jigsaw missing. While many folks suspect that children have a key role to play during this outbreak, hard evidence to support this belief remains lacking.

In perhaps the most important study of its type, Chinese researchers examined infection outcomes in additional than 2,000 confirmed or suspected childhood cases of Covid-19. Just over half the youngsters had mild cold-like symptoms, or no symptoms in the least .

Severe and important diseases, where body oxygen levels are low and various organs are under threat, were seen in around 5% of the youngsters studied, with the youngest (under one year old) most in danger . 

There are still significant gaps during this analysis. Importantly, most of those were suspected instead of confirmed Covid-19 cases. But this study does a minimum of reaffirm that the majority infections in children are mild.

Judging from past pandemics, school closures are often an efficient thanks to reduce the spread of an epidemic – particularly once they form a part of a bigger programme of social distancing measures. 

Every school day, children congregate en bloc , often in close proximity, then return home, taking with them any new infection they’ve picked up. Intuitively, reducing this cycle should help slow the virus.

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By assuming that the young and healthy weren’t in danger , the united kingdom government may have underestimated the consequences of coronavirus. 

Indeed, reports of hospital admissions show that even among younger people this is often an epidemic which will cause serious disease. 

A study from the US shows that 38% of 508 patients hospitalised with coronavirus were aged between 20 and 54 (children under 19 accounted for fewer than 1% of the entire admissions). of those 508 patients, 121 were admitted to intensive care; nearly half this group was under 65.

As with most things during this pandemic, the thought that coronavirus only threatens older people is an oversimplification. 

Younger people and youngsters are less likely to die from coronavirus, but their mild symptoms could make them contagious carriers of the virus – and that they are harder to identify .

• Jonathan Ball is professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham