According to a new epidemiological study in South Korea, children between the ages of 10 and 19 are more likely to spread the coronavirus within a home than younger children or adults. The findings, published on the website of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are presented when countries around the world face the heated question of how and when to reopen schools in amid fears of a resurgence in cases where students return to the classroom. The researchers tracked and tested more than 59,000 people who had contact with 5,706 South Korean Covid-19 patients between January 20 and March 27 and found that, on average, 11.8 percent of household contacts gave positive for the virus. For people living with infected older children, 18.6 percent tested positive for the virus within 10 days of detecting the initial case, the highest rate of transmission among the age groups studied. Children under the age of 10 transmit the virus at the lowest rate, although researchers cautioned that the figure may have been affected by school closings and could change when they reopen.
