Children rarely transmit the Chinese coronavirus, and therefore schools should reopen, albeit with certain safety protocols, according to a comment based on a recent study in the American Academy of Pediatrics, Pediatrics.
Benjamin Lee, MD and William V. Raszka, Jr., MD, both specialists in pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Vermont Larner School of Medicine (UVM). Dr. Raszka – published a comment titled “Transmission and Children COVID-19: The Child is Not to Blame”, citing the findings of a recent study published in Pediatrics, which found that children rarely transmit the Chinese coronavirus:
A new article in Pediatrics by researchers at the University of Vermont: “Children infrequently transmit Covid-19 to each other or to adults … schools … can and should reopen in the fall.” https://t.co/yPxHBrAkPh
– Avik Roy (@Avik) July 17, 2020
By UVM:
In the new Pediatrics In the study, Klara M. Posfay-Barbe, MD, a faculty member at the University of Geneva School of Medicine, and her colleagues studied the homes of 39 Swiss children infected with Covid-19. Monitoring of the contract revealed that only three (8%) were a suspected index case child, with symptoms prior to the disease in adult household contacts.
In a recent study in China, investigators’ contact tracing showed that of the 68 children with Covid-19 admitted to Qingdao Women’s and Children’s Hospital from January 20 to February 27, 2020, 96% they were household contacts of previously infected adults. In another study of Chinese children, nine out of 10 children admitted to various provincial hospitals outside 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.
In a French study, a boy with Covid-19 exposed more than 80 classmates in three schools to the disease. Neither contracted it. Transmission of other respiratory diseases, including flu transmission, was common in schools.
Raszka described the data as “surprising” and noted that it suggests that adults, not children, are contributing to the spread of the virus.
“The key conclusion is that children are not driving the pandemic,” he said.
“After six months, we have a wealth of accumulated data showing that children are less likely to become infected and appear less infectious; it is the congregation of adults who do not follow safety protocols who are responsible for driving the upward curve, ”she added.
The UMV cited the authors, who concluded that it is important to reopen schools in the fall, despite growing fears of the coronavirus. The reopening of schools, they said, could have a much bigger negative impact when it comes to child development.
“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,” they said. . said.
The findings come as local officials plan for the 2020-2021 academic year. Some districts, such as the Los Angeles Unified School District, have opted to start the year with strictly virtual learning and no immediate plans for students to physically return to class. Others, like the Philadelphia schools, have opted for a hybrid model, adopting an A / B schedule, allowing students to learn in a physical classroom twice a week and complete the remaining three days of the school week online.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) “strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the upcoming school year begin with the goal of having students physically present at school.” The AAP holds, as the authors of UVM’s comment acknowledged, that the virus behaves “differently in children and adolescents than other common respiratory viruses, such as the flu, on which much of the current guidance on school closings is based” .
