(1/15) Updated thread on children and #COVID19, summarising recent studies.
Summary: both child-to-child and child-to-adult transmission has occurred; cases in children are being missed.
#edutwitter #Schulen #Kinder #kinderen
Summary: both child-to-child and child-to-adult transmission has occurred; cases in children are being missed.
#edutwitter #Schulen #Kinder #kinderen
(2/15) First, a recap. Studies in this sub-thread show that children are probably as likely as adults to be infected given sufficient exposure, and can shed infectious virus.
(3/15) Children may have some protection compared to adults. They have less of the enzyme used by the novel coronavirus to enter cells. This might make them less susceptible, but given enough exposure this advantage is probably eventually lost.
(4/15) In a study of household transmission in Israel, fewer children than adults were infected. However, children appeared to be nearly as infectious as adults.
(5/15) Analysis of data from Germany continues to show no meaningful difference in viral load between children and adults.
(6/15) There was also no correlation between viral load and age in children in this study from South Korea.
(7/15) Importantly, child-to-child and child-to-adult transmission has now been shown to occur.
(8/15) Why, then, do some studies appear to show that children are less likely to be infected than adults?
(9/15) One possibility is that children have had less opportunity to be infected. In many countries, adult travellers initially seeded outbreaks.
Another is that children had fewer (or no) symptoms and weren’t tested, or the tests were false negatives.
Another is that children had fewer (or no) symptoms and weren’t tested, or the tests were false negatives.
(10/15) RT-PCR tests for the novel coronavirus can give false negatives. Some people who have the virus might actually test negative.
(11/15) Here’s what performing a nasopharyngeal swab looks like. It's a bit uncomfortable, and this may be difficult for young children in particular. This may affect the accuracy of the test.
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
(12/15) In this study of children with exposure to a known case, 24% who tested negative were subsequently determined to be probable cases after a CT scan was performed.
(13/15) This retrospective study of blood samples taken from children who’d been admitted to a Seattle hospital (for any reason) found that some children who weren’t thought to be cases had antibodies to the virus.
(14/15) Cases in children aren’t always obvious. In this study, two children with the virus had no respiratory symptoms, but infectious virus was detected in their nasopharyngeal swabs.
(15/15) In conclusion, everyone is at risk.
We need to build testing and contact tracing infrastructure to prevent transmission, and we should make schools safer for children and teachers.
We could take tips from South Korea:
washingtonpost.com/education/2020…
We need to build testing and contact tracing infrastructure to prevent transmission, and we should make schools safer for children and teachers.
We could take tips from South Korea:
washingtonpost.com/education/2020…
