🔥Hot off the press🔥
New article in @JAMAPediatrics from me and @SaulFaust
"The education and well-being of the current generation of children and young people should be the highest priority in any national strategy to reopen society."
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…
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Children have been spared the worst of disease from the pandemic, even considering the extremely rare post-COVID-19 hyperinflammatory syndrome
But school closures have been harming children, so the question regarding their role in transmission has loomed large
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A new study from brings us a step closer to understanding
In a meta analysis of contact tracing studies, children acquire the infection less than adults. Looking at household transmission specifically, by less than half (OR 0.41, 95%CI 0.22 - 0.76)
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…
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Differences much stronger for young children (<12-14y) than older teens
This is supported by seroprevalence data which have generally found lower levels of infection in children (especially in the largest, population representative studies)
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Assessing infectivity has been difficult, as has assessing direction of transmission in studies within schools
Thankfully, the vast majority of studies of COVID-19 within schools have found very limited evidence of transmission, with most cases remaining isolated
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Importantly - the time has come to put polarisation and reductionism of the debate aside
Our children's futures are too precious for them to be used as a political football
Decisions on precise actions taken to make schooling happen need to consider a number of things
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-Community transmission rates
-Resources available for infection prevention
-Social/cultural acceptability of different interventions
-Needs and viewpoints of the CHILDREN and their families whose futures may be irreparably damaged by long term school absence
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It's not as simple as "Kids don't transmit", or, "Schools will propagate a second wave"
They can't be opened with impunity with high prevalence, or remained closed indefinitely
But children MUST be at the forefront of all national strategies to reopen society
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