Experts say the high positivity rates for the Florida coronavirus among those under 18 are likely due to who is being tested.
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Amid all the COVID-19 figures released by the Florida Department of Health, one number could be a head scratch: a whopping 31.1 percent coronavirus positivity rate among those under 18 testing. of the virus, according to the state’s most recent pediatric report. .
Meanwhile, Florida’s overall positivity rate is currently 18.1 percent.
What gives? Are children really spreading the virus at higher rates than adults?
Not likely, says Meghan Delaney, chief of the Division of Laboratory Pathology and Medicine at the National Children’s Hospital in Washington, DC.
While that high number may be surprising, Delaney says there are some probable explanations.
One is that children so far have not been a major testing focus. Two, the children who get tested are often those who show symptoms of the disease.
Especially when and where evidence has been difficult to access, older people and those with underlying conditions were the focus of the available evidence.
As a result, fewer tests have been done on children, and young people who test for the coronavirus more frequently test positive.
“If you’re not screening as many people, you tend to screen the sick first. That can lead to a higher rate,” says Delaney. “It’s not like 31 percent of the 100 percent of children in the state [of Florida] have COVID. It is more a reflection of 31 percent of children with illnesses who would likely have COVID. “
And Florida is not alone in seeing those numbers. The DC region had equally high rates among children tested for the virus earlier this year, Delaney says.
In late March, Children’s National opened a test drive site just to test children. That site worked for a few months, Delaney says, and he sometimes saw high rates of positivity for the children he evaluated: “Actually, it was above 45 percent for a week and then fell again.”
Natalie Dean, a biostatistics at the University of Florida, states that Florida’s high positivity rate is likely because children are not tested frequently unless they have symptoms other than the virus or exposure to a known case.
“Not to mention that the procedure involves a child sitting still to have a swab inserted into his nose,” he adds.
The Florida Department of Health did not respond to multiple requests from NPR for the figures.
So what does the data so far generally tell us about children and the coronavirus?
Clearly, children contract the virus, although they are less likely than adults to experience a severe course of the disease.
According to state data in a dashboard created by epidemiologist Jason Salemi of the University of South Florida, Florida residents age 19 and under account for about 10 percent of all cases in the state, but only 1.6 percent of all hospitalizations and four deaths.
Some children who contract the coronavirus end up with multisystemic inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, although it is rare. The Florida Pediatric Report lists 13 known cases of MIS-C in the state.
If you think your kids have COVID-19, they’re worth checking out, Delaney says. “Knowing you’re positive changes things. It helps contact trackers track and find other people, and it helps prevent future transmission.”
Testing of people of all ages is crucial to control the virus, he adds. “Florida should be commended for testing many children, and they should continue to test many children and many adults because this is how we found where this virus is, helping those people stay away and not transmit,” she says. “That is one of our main tools to combat the pandemic at the moment.”
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