Babies and Toddlers Spread Virus in Homes More Easily Than Teens, Study Finds
Source: New York Times
Babies and toddlers are less likely to bring the coronavirus into their homes than teenagers are, but once they are infected, they are more likely to spread the virus to others in their households, according to a large new study by a Canadian public health agency. The findings can be explained, at least in part, by behavioral factors, experts said, including the fact that very young children require lots of hands-on care and cannot be isolated when they are sick. The study, which was published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday, does not resolve an ongoing debate over whether infected children are as contagious as adults, and it does not suggest that toddlers are driving the pandemic.
But it demonstrates that even very young children can still play a role. “This study showed that even the youngest of children readily transmit the virus,” said Zoe Hyde, an epidemiologist at the University of Western Australia, who was not involved in the research. She added: “The key takeaway for me is that it clearly shows that there’s transmission from children occurring in the household. This means we urgently need to think about how we’re going to protect schools when they reopen shortly.” During the early months of the pandemic, some scientists suggested that young children, in particular, rarely got infected with or transmitted the virus.
But those observations may have been distorted by the fact that most children had few social encounters during that time. “I think they were biased by the fact that children were sequestered at home,” said Dr. Tina V. Hartert, a respiratory epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University, who was not involved in the new study. “They were recommended not even to play with neighbors, they didn’t go to school, they didn’t go to day care.” The new study, which was conducted by researchers at Public Health Ontario, is based on records of Covid-19 cases and positive coronavirus tests in Ontario from June 1 to Dec. 31, 2020.
The researchers identified all positive tests associated with private households and then identified the “index case” — the first person to develop Covid-19 symptoms or test positive for the virus — in each household. They focused on 6,280 households in which the first person to catch the virus was under 18. Then they looked for secondary cases, or others in the same home who got sick in the two weeks after the first child fell ill. In most cases, they found, the chain of transmission stopped with the infected child, but in 27.3 percent of households, children passed the virus along to at least one other resident.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/16/health/covid-kids-toddlers-transmission.html
I am glad they are slowly batting away the "children are almost immune" (or it's "extremely extremely rare" ) narrative that had been going on for well over a year.
What this is actually establishing is that a year ago, due to schools and daycares being shut down and kids being kept home (and/or with some relative or acquaintance, with little or no "outside" interaction, including the eventual creation of so-called "pods", with children only interacting with others who were part of the same restricted "pod" or group), this actually mitigated the spread to/from them. Meanwhile adults still had to go out and work or shop, or be engaged in other activities.
One exposure by an infected adult to a child and game on, with the child apparently spreading it as much as the adults (although possibly being more asymptomatic so not tested).
I.e., just because the confirmed cases were "low" among children, this is s howing that it was not because of something special about them outside of straight-forward imposed mitigation, prompted by shutdowns, etc.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I take it you've never met my 15-year old niece! 
was that people didn't have to "worry" about children being infected or spreading it in a household because they were unlikely to contract it.
So it is another "walk back" of assumptions. 
The phrase, "No shit, Sherlock," springs to mind.
A study was needed to ascertain this? 
has 16 young kids, plus an adult, testing positive for Covid. Parents, who KNEW their child had Covid, knowingly dropped the child off, who then proceeded to pass it along to the others. The parents have been fined (4 or 5 figures, can't remember which) and are also facing possible criminal charges.
There are selfish, nasty people everywhere
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They needed a lot of physical help, like lunch, taken to the rest room, putting on boots, jackets and hats to go home. And I went to kindergarten at a private school - since my grandmother had taught there. But my parents didn't think it was worth the tuition since I was out more than I was there (I remember them saying). I do remember that I had the mumps since my Dad took pictures. 
But it seems the past year, until now, the health officials summarily threw out all common sense and dismissed COVID-19 infections in children, only characterizing it as "very rare" and sometimes relenting with a "Well a tiny few have contracted 'MIS-C' (Multisymptom Inflammatory Syndrome in Children) but otherwise the disease in children is nothing to worry about!!!11!!!!". 
Just the natural tendency for young children to cluster with others, particularly when playing, has really been concerning but there isn't much that can be done about a natural behavior without extreme isolation, which people try to avoid doing.
We've even heard tragic cases of Covid in young babies. And, like you said, young kids aren't big on boundaries, so I can see it spreading among them - like the mumps did back in the day of my kindergarten class.
And the other myth is that young kids can't wear masks. They were mandated in the schools here and I'd see even young kids getting off the school buses still wearing masks. At that age, if they're all doing it, they'll just accept it as normal.
I went to a family funeral last week - my Dad's cousin died of Covid even though she was fully vaccinated. (I know that at least that branch of my family are lifelong Democrats.) The service was in the Catholic Church and it was a pretty long mass. Every single person there was wearing a mask - including the priest. They even had disposable masks on offer at the entrance. My point is that there was a little boy of not more than five sitting right in front of me - and he was wearing a mask. I was impressed at how good he was and the mask was small like he was and he seemed perfectly used to it.