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  • Health: This is the most serious Covid in children: fewer cases and less sequelae

An article published in the journal Pediatrics , the official peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics , concludes that children transmit Covid-19 to each other or to adults infrequently and that many schools, provided they follow the distancing guidelines appropriate social and take into account transmission rates in your community, can and should reopen in the fall.

The authors, Benjamin Lee and William V. Raszka, Jr. , are specialists in pediatric infectious diseases at the Larner School of Medicine of the University of Vermont, in the United States.

The authors of the paper , entitled Transmission and Children Covid-19: The child is not to blame , base their conclusions on a new study published in the current issue of Pediatrics , COVID-19 in Children and the dynamics of infection in Families and others. four recent studies examining Covid-19 transmission by and among children.

In the new study of pediatrics, Klara M. Posfay-Barbe , member of the faculty of the School of Medicine of the University of Geneva ( Switzerland ) and colleagues studied 39 homes Swiss children infected with Covid-19 .

Contact tracing revealed that only in three cases (8%) was the initial suspected case child, with symptoms prior to illness from adult household contacts.

In a recent study in China, investigator contact tracing showed that of the 68 Covid-19 children admitted to Qingdao Women's and Children's Hospital from January 20 to February 27, 2020, 96% were household contacts of previously infected adults.

In another study with Chinese children, nine out of 10 admitted to various provincial hospitals outside of Wuhan contracted Covid-19 from an adult, with only one possible transmission from child to child, depending on the time of onset of the disease.

Similarly, in a French study, a child with Covid-19 exposed more than 80 classmates in three schools and none contracted it.

Transmission of other respiratory diseases, including flu transmission, was common in schools. In a study in New South Wales , nine infected students and nine staff members from 15 schools exposed a total of 735 students and 128 staff members to Covid-19 . Only two secondary infections occurred, one transmitted by an adult to a child.

A pandemic spread by adults

"The data is surprising," acknowledges Dr. Raszka, "The key conclusion is that children are not spreading the pandemic . After six months, we have a large body of accumulated data showing that children are less likely to become infected and appear less infectious, and it's the congregation of adults who don't follow safety protocols who are responsible for driving the upward curve. "

The increase in adult and child cases in Texas child care centers , which have seen 894 cases of Covid-19 among staff members and 441 among children in 883 child care centers statewide, have the potential to be misinterpreted says Dr. Raszka, who has not studied the details of the outbreak.

"There is a widespread transmission of Covid-19 in Texas today, with many adults congregating without observing social distancing or wearing a mask," he admits, "while we don't yet know the dynamics of the outbreak, babies and children are unlikely in daycare they are driving the increase. According to the evidence, it is more plausible that adults transmit the infection to children in the vast majority of cases. "

The authors say that support for the notion that children are not significant vectors of the disease comes from mathematical modeling. Models show that social distancing and widespread mask adoption is a much better strategy to reduce the spread of disease, and that closing schools adds little.

The fact that schools have reopened in many Western European countries and Japan without seeing an increase in community broadcasts confirms the accuracy of the modeling. Reopening schools safely this fall is important to children's development, the authors say.

"By doing so, we could minimize the potentially profound adverse social, developmental and health costs that our children will continue to suffer until an effective treatment or vaccine can be developed and delivered, or failing that, until we achieve collective immunity," he adds. .

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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