
Children’s role in spread of virus bigger than thought - mmmbn
https://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/08/looking-at-children-as-the-silent-spreaders-of-sars-cov-2/
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brandon272
It's baffling to me that there has ever been much of a question over whether
kids can get and spread the virus to begin with.

Many people seem to have taken the "kids are less impacted when infected" and
converted it to a "kids can't get infected" or "kids don't spread the virus"
conclusion.

The provincial government where I live was recently excoriated for coming up
with one of the weakest back-to-school plans in the country, which effectively
suggested the status quo with next to no supports or funding for schools to
deal with COVID-19 unless and until outbreaks start occurring.

From what I can tell based on the policy and subsequent public statements made
by the officials, they seemed to have been operating under the assumption that
kids can't be infected or are less likely to be infected with COVID-19.

The lack of critical thinking on display when it comes to this virus,
especially by policymakers, is one of the most disturbing facets of this
pandemic. I really get the impression that many are not putting in an effort
to maintain even a baseline level of up to date knowledge on this evolving
situation. It's distressing when you see people espousing opinion based on
outdated information from 4 months ago.

~~~
EliRivers
Was there really a question? Or did our policymakers start from the required
conclusion - the peasantry go back to work - and from there infer backwards to
"their children need to go back to school so that said peasantry can go back
to work"?

With that kind of thinking, I can understand that they don't actually have any
idea about the transmission of Covid amongst children; they don't _need_ that
information as it has little bearing on the required conclusion.

I have presented something of a leading question. I know what I think the
answer is.

~~~
blub
I don't think it's just the government, at least based on what I see in e.g.
Germany.

Society has decided that kids have to go back to school because anything else
is just too inconvenient. The lame excuses about lower transmission rates and
the risk of developmental impairment are conveniently put forward to justify
the decision.

~~~
jshaqaw
From what I see in my own children, depression and developmental impairment
are not fabricated risks. I’m not saying they outweigh greater public health
concerns regarding the spread of the disease but the worries I have for my
kids if the next school year is entirely remote go entirely beyond personal
inconvenience. There are sadly no perfect solutions here.

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HarryHirsch
It's common experience that children bring home all sorts of sniffles from
school, there's a noticeable uptick in upper respiratory tract infections when
the new school years starts in the fall. Many of these are caused by
coronaviruses. With that in mind, the push to start school is based on wishful
thinking, not on clinical evidence.

~~~
nickff
The push to start school is based on the perceived economic necessity
(arguably a cost-benefit analysis), of providing childcare for parents of
children between the ages of 5 and 17.

~~~
fileeditview
It is very important for the development of the children to continue their
education and socialize. Basically every child you ask will tell you it wants
to go back to school. Making this about economics is nonsense.

It increasingly baffles me how we accept all kinds of risk every day (e.g.
traffic) but in the case of Corona forbid children very important parts of
their childhood, while allowing all kinds of other useless activities.

Disclaimer: this obviously varies from country to country.

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
I think there's an interesting rhetorical split and contradiction.

The same politic groups, that would argue that teachers are the heroes of
society that we can't live without, are now arguing that school must under no
circumstance resume. We must indefinitely put off in-person schooling.

What? Is this the best we can do? Does this even measure up with scientific
reality and risk calculation? Are teachers really that simultaneously
important/unimportant? If the grocery baggers are working and handling the
crisis well enough, so should teachers. It's clear that there's a class
element to "essential worker." And this entire profession that seems to love
the praise they generally receive from the left about how indispensable they
are, are now suspiciously absent from the essential worker category.

You can only conclude that the social and mental development of children isn't
essential.

If they cared enough, they'd use this crisis as an opportunity to start hiring
younger teachers in droves to build up the workforce with relatively
inexperienced teachers who aren't at much risk from the virus (at least
compared to some 50-60yo teacher). But I suspect unions would stop at nothing
to impede adaptive, efficient, and creative solutions.

~~~
bfdm
Buying food is necessary to stay alive. Kids attending school in person is
not.

If there were a real plan in place to ensure safety, and if adults were
willing to sacrifice in other areas like going out to bars then school could
work if we had consistent isolated groups.

As it stands, at least in Ontario, there's been a strong push to "open up"
bars and restaurants etc which to me is public mixing incompatible with the
mixing of students in a class. Pick one: school or everything else.

~~~
gnusty_gnurc
> Kids attending school in person is not.

But you're not owning up to the possible irreparable damage to children's
psyche, mental wellbeing, career prospects, etc.

At least be honest about the tradeoffs. If I'm saying that people are
overestimating risk and people will blame me for associated mortality and
effects of the disease, it's like the other side of the debate is never that
open and explicit about the _very serious_ drawbacks and costs of their
choices.

Let's be fair to both sides: you're responsible for suicides, health effects
of prolonged isolation, etc.

~~~
dependenttypes
> irreparable damage to children's psyche, mental wellbeing

That will be the case if they continue school.

> Let's be fair to both sides: you're responsible for suicides, health effects
> of prolonged isolation, etc.

With that logic you are personally responsible for suicides, health effects of
bullying and school slavery, etc.

> and people will blame me for associated mortality and effects of the disease

I do not think that blaming people for expressing their opinion will be worth
much to the family who just lost one of its members. It is cheap for you to
accept blame and worthless to these that suffer due to following the same
belief.

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civilized
It's good to have independent confirmation, but to my recollection, a months-
old German study already reported high viral loads in the respiratory tracts
of asymptomatic infected children. The idea that children don't spread COVID
much has always been grounded more in wishful thinking than evidence.

~~~
rimliu
There are studies stating the opposite. They are not that popular in the
popular media, because people don't like their "intuition" to be wrong". Not
to mention, that the title is misleading.

~~~
amelius
> There are studies stating the opposite

This is true for many subjects of interest (e.g. climate change), but of
importance are the quality of the studies and where scientific consensus is
going.

~~~
greatpatton
Most of this is coming from a study in France in early January where 2 British
kids were infected and in contact with 130 other kids at different schools and
none of them were infected. So now we can suppose that this study may have
different issue.

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lbeltrame
This study does not prove that children are more infectious.

The paper only tested for viral RNA, not for infectious virus. Given that some
people are clinically recovered but still have RNA in the throat, and that
presence of viral RNA may not equate with live virus (see a Nature paper from
two months ago), this is a rather severe limitation.

Note that they may as well be: but you can't infer this from these results.

~~~
glormph
Exactly. The paper itself concludes somewhat softer that "children may be a
potential source of contagion in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in spite of milder
disease or lack of symptoms"

The patient group consisted of "children ... presenting to urgent care clinics
or being hospitalized for confirmed/suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection or
multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children", so they are pre-selected ,
making the role of the full amount of children in the population in spreading
harder to know.

As you note, that doesnt rule it out either.

~~~
lbeltrame
I still feel a little sour about this result: mainly because it's "easier" to
find data on adult patients, but children data are far harder to get.

So I feel this is a wasted opportunity.

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gammarator
The study does not support the article title. Viral load is not the same as
contribution to epidemiological spread.

The best study I'm aware of suggests an age-dependent effect, with older kids
infecting others at about the adult rate, but young kids causing very little
secondary infection: [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-
childr...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-children-
schools.html)

~~~
blub
Which intuitively makes no sense, as any parent of toddlers or kindergarten
kids can testify.

This virus would have to be unlike any other respiratory virus for young kids
not to infect others.

~~~
derbOac
My theory is that there's cross immunity to other coronaviruses. This is now
supported by molecular research but it's been my hypothesis all along.
Basically little kids are so exposed to so many other coronaviruses they have
greater immunity to sars-cov-2.

I've had this prediction I'd like to test with the right data that parents of
young children, and those that work with them, have lower covid rates than
demographically matched controls.

Ironically this would suggest that socially distancing kids might decrease
immunity in the long run.

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fallingfrog
Any parent of school age children knows that almost every cold you catch comes
from your kids, who spend their time at daycare passing around the same toy
and each putting it in their mouth. A few come from the workplace, but most
from kids. Covid is not a superflu, it’s a supercold, and there’s no a priori
reason to expect that you can’t catch it from your kids.

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SomewhatLikely
If I read correctly the they're saying they found that children have higher
viral loads in their respiratory tracts. They are then making a very logical
leap to assuming that this means children will more easily spread the virus.
Is it possible that this assumption could be wrong? Are there no studies on
the actual transmission rates from children to others vs that from adults?

~~~
lbeltrame
> If I read correctly the they're saying they found that children have higher
> viral loads in their respiratory tracts

As I wrote elsewhere in the comments, the researchers have equated the
quantity of viral RNA with viral load. Studies in adults have shown that this
is not always the case. There's no guarantee that there is active virus there
(unless you try to infect cells with what you got from the swab).

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rurban
Children were always _thought_ to spread the virus like with influenza virus.
That's why all schools closed.

But the problem was that kids under 10 turned out to be not affected in
numbers. People still thought that it is dangerous for or with kids.
Statistics worldwide didn't support that.

The picture is now a bit clearer, that kids just belong to the huge group of
asymptotic cases dealing with the common cold as every year.

The potential to infect older people is still disputed. Current studies
clearly dismiss that. Only the press and politicians are fascinated by that
idea. The biggest COVID-19 spreaders are still young women at around 30,
unlike with the influenza.

~~~
rurban
Eg [https://fullfact.org/health/children-silent-super-
spreaders-...](https://fullfact.org/health/children-silent-super-spreaders-
coronavirus/)

------
keeganpoppen
this is interesting news, but it annoys me a little bit that all it really
says is that children "can" carry a higher viral load... OBVIOUSLY the most
salient fact is whether children are more conducive / likely to spread the
virus / etc. because clearly the question is not whether children _can_ get
the virus, etc., but whether they are a more potent attack vector than the
general population. or maybe people seriously thought that because the virus
has reduced symptoms in children that children somehow don't... catch the
virus at all? it is hard to not feel like there is a paternalistic bent in the
way this information is presented, and one that exists only to subvert the
kind of maximally shallow, facile social media critique that will be
promulgated by people who are anti-mask/ _-etc. anyway... why must the
communication of the truth in so many spheres be polluted by the mere_
possibility* of out-of-context quotation causing stupid people to throw a
hissy fit? apologies if it turns out I misread the ambiguous wording in this
report, though I think the point still stands generally, at least from my own
experience...

~~~
Someone1234
> this is interesting news, but it annoys me a little bit that all it really
> says is that children "can" carry a higher viral load

No it doesn't. In the first paragraph it says:

> The infected children were shown to have a significantly higher level of
> virus in their airways than hospitalized adults in ICUs for COVID-19
> treatment, according to Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital
> (MGH) and Mass General Hospital for Children (MGHfC).

So they SHOWED in patients that it DOES have higher viral load. First
paragraph.

The second paragraph contradicts your reading further:

> The study, “Pediatric SARS-CoV-2: Clinical Presentation, Infectivity, and
> Immune Reponses,” was published today in The Journal of Pediatrics.

> “I was surprised by the high levels of virus we found in children of all
> ages, especially in the first two days of infection,” says Lael Yonker,
> director of the

~~~
johncearls
To me the real issue here is how did they select the children. Unfortunately,
I cannot find the paper. Why don't they ever link to these things? A likely
restatement of this article is, "To have even mild symptoms of COVID, children
need a much higher viral load than hospitalized adults." Again, I'd love to
find the paper to see if my guess is right.

~~~
lbeltrame
The paper is at:
[https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(20)31023-4/fulltext](https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476\(20\)31023-4/fulltext)

~~~
johncearls
Thanks! I'll note it is exactly what I thought. This was not a random
population. This is children showing symptoms bad enough to warrant going to
the hospital.

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zarmin
That's why I call it the Child Virus

