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Scientists in London are studying the possibility that the new variant of the virus responsible for covid-19 could more easily infect children. The scenario was thrown as a possibility by one of the members of the group tasked with advising the British government on the pandemic, known as NervTag. However, to establish a direct relationship between the variant and infections among children, the group’s scientists insist that more studies are needed.
The appearance of the new variant was reported to the WHO on December 14. But just this week, studies indicated that its transmission rate could be 70% higher than that of the coronavirus that was known until then. The discovery led Prime Minister Boris Johnson to cancel Christmas for millions of people, placed under restriction. More than 40 countries have closed access and flights to the UK.
According to scientists, studies are underway to understand what the mutation could mean. But for Neil Ferguson, current data suggests that the virus “is more likely to infect children.” But he himself was clear when indicating that they did not establish “any type of causality in this regard.” “But we can see that in the data,” insisted the professor at Imperial College London.
“What we saw over a period of five or six weeks is that the constant proportion of cases of the variant in children under 15 years of age was statistically higher than that of the non-variant virus,” he said.
Other members of the same government advisory group cautioned that there is still no evidence of this relationship and called for caution. “We are not saying that it is a virus that specifically attacks children,” said researcher Wendy Barclay, who is also part of the group.
“We know that SARS-CoV-2, as it arose as a virus, was not as effective in infecting children, and there are many hypotheses about this,” he said. For her, if the new virus finds it easier to infect, it could change the situation for children.
“Perhaps children are as susceptible to this virus as adults, and therefore, given their mixing patterns, one would expect to see more children infected,” he said.
