Study: Children Carry Higher Levels of Coronavirus

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Chicago researchers found that young children can have 10 to 100 times the amount of the coronavirus in their noses and throats as adults.
• The new study may help settle the continuing debate about reopening schools in the United States.
• Children under the age of 5 can carry significantly higher levels of coronavirus than adults.

The debate about reopening schools in the country continues.

A small study conducted by researchers in Chicago revealed that young children can carry significantly higher levels of the novel coronavirus than adults.

Children under the age of five can have between 10 to 100 times the amount of the virus in their noses and throats, according to a new study published by JAMA Pediatrics last week

Chicago researchers performed nose swab tests from March 23 to April 27 on 145 patients. The subjects experienced mild to moderate symptoms within a week after symptoms began. They were then divided into three groups. The first group consisted of 46 children under the age of 5, the second group had 51 kids between the ages of 5-17, and the third group had 48 adults aged 18-65.

There is no indication if any of the patients had pre-existing health conditions. Also, it didn’t test for the live virus, but for the presence of coronavirus genetic material.

The results have no indication that young children are more contagious than adults, they only reveal that children “can potentially be important drivers” in transmitting the virus. An important note that researchers believe officials should take into consideration when making decisions about the reopening of schools this year.

“The school situation is so complicated,” lead author Dr. Taylor Heald-Sargent, pediatric infectious diseases expert at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, told The New York Times.

“We can’t assume that just because kids aren’t getting sick, or very sick, that they don’t have the virus,” Heald-Sargent added.

In the study, researchers also pointed out that the fact that schools have been closed for the majority of the health crisis may have impacted initial research, which has indicated that children were less likely to spread COVID-19.

Previously, a large South Korean study reported that household transmission of the coronavirus “was high” for patients between 10 and 19 years of age.

President Donald Trump pushed for reopening and even threatened to cut off federal funding to schools that do not reopen for in-person learning. —

Last week, a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine stressed that while reopening schools can be done, there should be guidance in controlling outbreaks.

“Any region experiencing moderate, high, or increasing levels of community transmission should do everything possible to lower transmission,” the authors wrote. “Such measures along with universal mask wearing must be implemented now in the United States if we are to bring case numbers down to safe levels for elementary schools to reopen this fall nationwide.”

Source: PEOPLE.Com