Kids Can Get Covid-19. They Just Don't Get That Sick

[LiberalArkie]

The outbreak of a new virus always breeds confusion. Where did it come from? How does it spread? How dangerous is it? Ten weeks into the Covid-19 epidemic, enough information has emerged to start filling in some of these gaps. Scientists believe the virus that causes the respiratory disease is likely to be transmitted in droplets through coughing. The available data suggests that a single contagious person will infect about 2.2 others, on average. Globally, 3.4 percent of reported Covid-19 patients have died, though that fatality rate is likely inflated, since people with mild symptoms are probably not being diagnosed and counted in the overall patient pool.

But as the weeks have gone by, one mystery has remained: Where are all the kids?

In a recent analysis by a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins and in China of more than 72,000 confirmed cases from China, children under the age of 10 accounted for less than 1 percent of all infections. Of the 1,023 deaths recorded in China at the time, not a single child was among them. “We see relatively few cases among children,” World Health Organization director general Tedros Adhanom Gheberyesus told reporters in mid-February. “More research is needed to understand why.”

“It’s really very weird,” says Buddy Creech, an infectious disease pediatrician at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Mortality patterns associated with most respiratory pathogens traditionally form a U-shaped curve, reflecting more severe disease in the very young and the elderly, says Creech. Respiratory viruses flourish in bodies where the immune system is either still developing or has started to wear out. These include the four coronaviruses that cause the common cold, which tend to be way more common in children than adults. “The new virus that causes Covid-19 appears to flip that,” says Creech.

Snippy

https://www.wired.com/story/kids-can-get-covid-19-they-just-dont-get-that-sick/

[TDale313]

1. That's weird, but also very good news.

Generally the very young are among the most vulnerable to disease. If this flips that for whatever reason, great. Also... maybe if they can crack why it will help with either a vaccine or cure?

[LiberalArkie]

4. They will be the carriers as usual. I stay away from all the little ones during cold and flu season.

The elementary schools seem to be virus breeding factories anyway. Just the nature of growing up.

[Azathoth]

2. Might be a bad thing

Seniors aren't major spreaders of disease; kids are. Little kids who are asymptomatic carriers could infect dozens.

[mshasta]

5. Yes...that's the scariest part

All children should be tested , they are going to school pass along to other children , they are talking to teachers, staff members, than come home hug parents....hug grandma

[Dem2]

3. Ugh

My 85 year old mom has a history of Asthma. I just lost my dad recently, this is really ruining my ability to think positively lately.

[mshasta]

6. So sorry

Protect your mom as much as you can

[Johnny2X2X]

7. My mom won't survive this either.

She’s 77 and has almost no immune system as she’s hospitalized several times a year for infections of one kind or another. She won’t survive this.

And she a right winger so she thinks there is zero to worry about.

[Dem2]

10. There's a FB post going around

"I survived 'SARS', 'Ebola' ... Obama's presidency"

I was so shocked when I saw it that (probably thankfully) I couldn't think of a clever response to it.

It's socked away in my memory banks though, even if he deletes it, I will remind him of his callousness if things get as bad as expected. (If anything happens to my mom, watch out.)

[central scrutinizer]

8. Vectors

Little kids are disease vectors like mosquitoes. They touch everything, put everything in their mouths, then crawl all over you. But giving them a big hug is the antidote. That’s my plan.

[Nonhlanhla]

9. This is why I pulled my daughter out of public school this week

Last edited Sat Mar 7, 2020, 01:29 PM - Edit history (1)

I would never have done it otherwise, but the school's plan is to deal with this like the flu: focus on the kids' symptoms, when the problem here is that their presence there makes parents vulnerable. So I enrolled her in an online school, and I hope to arrange with my employer to work online for the foreseeable future. I will be next week anyway since I got a note from the doctor about my current bronchitis.

I am rather scared. I hope to hunker down at least until the end of summer. Hubby works in a healthcare setting in a different town, but he usually commutes. We might have him live there for a while, given his exposure.

This feels like hell though. We have jut bought out dream home. And to think if we had a functioning government, it could probably have been contained. And no one knows how this will end. If only vaccines were quicker... Or at least workable treatments