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TUESDAY, Feb.9, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Children in daycare centers had low rates of coronavirus infection early in the pandemic and are unlikely sources of COVID-19 transmission, a new study from France finds.
COVID-19 can infect people of all ages, but children tend to develop mild symptoms, if any, and very rarely need to be hospitalized. The role of very young children as asymptomatic propagators of the coronavirus is unknown and the risk to the community of having daycare centers open has not been clear.
“Young children do not spread the virus widely in these settings,” said study co-author Dr. Camille Aupiais, from Hôpital Jean-Verdier in Paris.
“These findings should be reassuring for parents and daycare staff, especially given that the children included in the study have parents who are key workers and are believed to be at increased risk during the first wave of the epidemic,” Aupiais said .
However, the study was completed before the emergence of new, more infectious variants of the virus.
The study included 327 children between the ages of 5 months and 4 years who attended daycare centers in France that remained open during the country’s first national closure from March to May 2020.
The researchers evaluated the children’s blood levels of antibodies to the virus (seroprevalence) and found that less than 4% had such antibodies.
Children with antibodies to the coronavirus were likely infected by an adult in their home, rather than someone at daycare, according to the study. The results were published on February 8 in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health daily.
The seroprevalence rate among daycare staff was similar to that of a control group of adults who were not exposed to children or people with COVID-19 at work, the researchers found.
The seroprevalence data is believed to reveal the true rate of infection because it shows levels of antibodies in the blood, regardless of whether a person has had COVID-19 symptoms or not.
“We suggest that clinical signs of COVID-19 are not the best indicators of infection or for testing very young children and that the primary criterion should be a suspected or confirmed case in an adult household member,” Aupiais said in a statement. press release of the magazine. More research is needed to fully understand the role of young children in community transmission, he added.
New variants of the coronavirus have appeared since the study data was collected, and it is not known whether young children are more or less susceptible to these newer strains, the researchers noted.
They also said that the daycare centers in the study were not operating at full capacity during the study period, so the findings may not apply to centers that were operating normally.
More information
The American Academy of Pediatrics has more about daycare and COVID-19.
SOURCE: The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, press release, February 8, 2021
