Older children are more likely to spread COVID-19 within a home than younger children and adults, according to a new study of 5,706 coronavirus patients in South Korea.
The researchers tracked and evaluated nearly 60,000 people who had contact with infected people and found that, on average, 11.8 percent of household contacts tested positive for COVID-19, according to the early publication of a study published in the Centers for the U.S. Disease Control and Prevention website.
For people living with patients between the ages of 10 and 19, 18.6 percent tested positive for the virus within 10 days of detection of the initial case, the highest rate of transmission among the groups studied. Children under the age of 10 transmit the virus at the lowest rate, although researchers warned that could change when schools are reopened.
The study comes immediately after intense debate over whether, when, and how schools should resume classes. Parents working around the world have been struggling to balance their own remote work with the added complication of school closings. There is intense pressure on political leaders. In the United States, the Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal funds for local school districts that do not reopen.
At the same time, virus rates have risen again, even in places they thought had extinguished their outbreaks, and many teachers are wary of returning to the classroom. State data suggests that infection rates among children may also be much higher than the 2 percent reported by the CDC.
The South Korean study suggests that older children may be particularly contagious, though researchers point out that household contacts may have contracted the virus elsewhere. Still, given the high rates of infection within families, the study called for more research to understand how to limit the spread of the virus at home.
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