Study: Children Much More Likely to Spread COVID-19 to Others
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:
Study: Children much more likely to spread COVID-19 to others:
While children are less susceptible to illness with the new coronavirus, they are nearly 60% more likely than adults over 60 to infect other family members when they are sick, a new study shows.
The findings show the need to conduct COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy studies in children, according to co-senior study author Yang Yang, an associate professor of biostatistics and member of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida.
"We also need to take into account the potential high infectivity of children when we plan school reopenings and what prevention measures we need to take during active school sessions," Yang said in a university news release.
The researchers analyzed data from more than 27,000 households in Wuhan, China, that had confirmed cases of COVID-19 between Dec. 2, 2019, and April 18, 2020, a peak period of COVID-19 disease transmission in the city that was the first epicenter of the pandemic.
[...] The higher infectivity of children in this study may be due to close contact with parents and other relatives caring for them, according to the authors of the study.
[...] The study also found that infants younger than 1 were significantly more likely to be infected with COVID-19 than children between the ages of 2 and 5. This may be due to a combination of their still-developing immune systems and their close contact with adults.
"It's unlikely there will be a vaccine for infants against COVID-19 in the near future, so we need to protect their caregivers," said study co-author Ira Longini.
[...] The findings were published this week in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases.
No-brainer: kids... spread ALL communicable diseases!
Press Release:
UF study sheds light on the roles of children and asymptomatic infections in COVID-19 household transmission
Journal Reference:
Fang Li, Yuan-Yuan Li. Household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and risk factors for susceptibility and infectivity in Wuhan: a retrospective observational study, The Lancet Infectious Diseases (DOI: 10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30981-6)
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