Thread by @DrEricDing

KIDS EPIDEMIC in Italy 🇮🇹—#B117 variant among Italy's infected schoolchildren and is helping to fuel a “robust” uptick in the curve of #COVID19–with higher transmission rates "among the youngest age group” of the population.
finance.yahoo.com/news/virus-var…

2) In recent weeks, Italy’s incidence of new cases among young people has now eclipsed incidence among the older population, a reversal of how COVID-19 afflicted residents in the first months of the pandemic.

3) Speranza announced stricter directives, contained in the first anti-pandemic decree of new Italian Premier Mario Draghi, aimed at trying to “govern this curve of contagion,” especially among school-age children.

4) There are “rather robust signs of an uptick in the curve of contagion and terrible variants,” particularly the one discovered in Britain, the minister said.

5) The president of the government Superior Institute of Health, Silvio Brusaferro, said that as of analyses of cases on Feb. 18, 54% of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Italy involved that variant. But, said Brusaferro, “if measured today surely the percentage would be higher.”

6) It all started last month with a huge outbreak of #B117 in one Italian village where 10% of all people were infected. 60% kids.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1357599530296958982

7) Denmark had a similar #B117 driven outbreak in young kids.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1362725213264297984

8) As well as a British Columbia 🇨🇦 7 school outbreak led by a few #B117 initial cases.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1363693739085099008

9) In UK where #B117 is nearly completely dominant, kids positivity has been diverging from adults.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1360289161291390983

10) It is believe there U.K. kids higher rates are due to schools reopening without enough safety precautions.

https://twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1360184562672955395

11) Israel is seeing a sharp rise in the number of children and teens getting #COVID19, where #B117 rising.

>50,000 children have been diagnosed with #COVID19 since start of Jan, many more than Israel saw in any month during the first or second waves.
m.jpost.com/health-science…


12) Instead of around 29% of new cases coming from children and teens, as in the second wave, now they are around 40% of cases, Public Health Services head Sharon Alroy-Preis said in the Knesset on Monday. The greatest spike was in children between ages of **6 - 9** (matches 🇬🇧)

13) “according to Cyrille Cohen, head of Bar-Ilan University’s immunotherapy laboratory, the numbers seem to be rising. one hypothesis is that it is tied to the British mutation #B117, which has spread rapidly across Israel.”

14) I’ve alluded to this trend in kids 0-9 before over a month ago in the #B117 data... while kids overall lower risk than adults, #B117 has yielded relatively greater increase in attack rate in kids 0-9 than increase in older age groups compared to the older common strain.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1347745261670584321

15) This 🧵 makes the clear case that school transmission of #COVID19 does occur, & increases when cases levels rise—which then further drives school transmission. It’s a deep analytical but that’s the Bottomline. Schools are not impervious to risk, especially #b117.

https://twitter.com/sarahdrasmussen/status/1356302433237008391

16) Besides #B117 being 40-60% more contagious, recently, UK says #B117 variant can be 30-70% more severe than old common strains.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1361413249426628613

17) to be clear, I’m **not** anti school reopening per se. I’m just pro **safe** school reopenings only. And the key to safe schools is improved ventilation and air disinfection — with sufficient air 5 air exchanges per hour. Here is my 🧵 on CDC’s new guidance on school air—

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1365678603212648461

18) Let’s learn from Quebec 🇨🇦 that had unmasked reopening among elementary schools. Teachers and kids got infected more than general population. School cases dropped during winter break, and rose again after break was over. Let’s learn from them. Mask and ventilate schools 🙏

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1364399105972273155

19) Another key detail: “The variant found in South Africa is involved in 0.4% of COVID-19 infections in Italy 🇮🇹 and mainly confined to the Italian Alpine area near the border with Austria 🇦🇹 (the part that borders Tyrol—the epicenter of #B1351 SA variant)

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1359135923615719428