"Do Children Spread Coronavirus? What Doctors & Others Say About Going Back To School"

Last edited Mon Jul 13, 2020, 06:06 AM - Edit history (1)

'Do children spread coronavirus? What doctors say about going back to school.' By Denise Chow, Lauren Dunn and Patrick Martin, 4 hrs ago, NBC News. - Edited:

President Donald Trump is pressing state and local officials to reopen schools this fall, despite coronavirus infections surging nationwide. While experts say there are significant social benefits to resuming in-person classes, they caution that schools will need to balance those against potential risks to provide a safe learning environment for students — as well as teachers and administrators. Evidence suggests that children are not as susceptible as adults to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Even among those who have been infected, it's relatively rare for children to develop serious complications or require hospitalization.

But this doesn't mean classrooms can be exempt from social distancing and other safety precautions, particularly if schools intend to welcome kids back on site in less than two months. "It really shouldn't be a debate of getting kids back to school, but getting kids back to school safely," said Dr. Jennifer Lighter, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in NY. Having kids physically present in schools in the fall as much as possible would be an "ideal situation," Lighter said, but schools will need to implement policies that allow students to maintain some distance indoors and avoid close contact for prolonged periods of time. This could include decreasing class sizes, rearranging desks to ensure kids aren't clustered together or facing one another and moving gym classes or other recreational activities outdoors, she said.

U.S children make up about 22 % of the population, but kids are only 2 % of coronavirus cases so far, according to the CDC. It's not yet known what accounts for that disparity, said Dr. C. Buddy Creech in Nashville.."This has been a strange pandemic because usually for respiratory viruses, children are the first and most substantially affected," "This has really been a flip of that, where it's our adults, and particularly older adults, that have been more affected." It's also unknown how and why the risks aren't the same for all young people.
There are signs that adolescents - particularly those with pre-existing conditions- are at similar risk of infection as adults, though more research is needed, says Dr. William Raszka, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in VT. "The younger you are, probably the less likely you are to be able to transmit the disease," "Once you get to high school age, you're going to be a little bit more concerned, [and] once you're in college age, you're going to be a lot concerned."

...In Europe and the U.S., it was reported that some children infected with the coronavirus experienced inflammatory symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease, a result of the child's immune system essentially kicking into overdrive. More than 100 cases of the complication, dubbed multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children or MIS-C, were reported in NY, [S.C. now has 2 cases] which was the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in North America in March and April. Though potentially deadly, Lighter said MIS-C is "exceedingly rare."...

More, https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/do-children-spread-coronavirus-what-doctors-say-about-going-back-to-school/ar-BB16Evge

* "First Cases Of Coronavirus- Related Inflammatory Syndrome Identified In Children In South Carolina," CNN, 7/12/20. https://democraticunderground.com/10142536137
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- 'Teachers worry about how we'll keep them safe if schools reopen. 'Kids don't go to school by themselves,' CNN, July 13, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/13/us/teachers-covid-19-return-school/index.html

- 'States Struggle With Reopening Schools,' CNN, July 10, 2020.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/10/us/us-coronavirus-schools/index.html