NYTimes: Children May Carry Coronavirus at High Levels, Study Finds

[riversedge]

Children May Carry Coronavirus at High Levels, Study Finds

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/health/coronavirus-children.html

The research does not prove that infected children are contagious, but it should influence the debate about reopening schools, some experts said.




July 30, 2020

It has been a comforting refrain in the national conversation about reopening schools: Young children are mostly spared by the coronavirus and don’t seem to spread it to others, at least not very often.

But on Thursday, a study introduced an unwelcome wrinkle into this smooth narrative.

Infected children have at least as much of the coronavirus in their noses and throats as infected adults, according to the research. Indeed, children younger than age 5 may host up to 100 times as much of the virus in the upper respiratory tract as adults, the authors found.

That measurement does not necessarily prove children are passing the virus to others. Still, the findings should influence the debate over reopening schools, several experts said............................

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Coronavirus testing at a mobile clinic at the Walker Temple A.M.E. Church in south Los Angeles earlier this month.Credit...Mario Tama/Getty Images

[secondwind]

1. Poor child. Those swabs are hell. Terrible pain.

[pansypoo53219]

2. any parent-DUH!

[tanyev]

3. "That measurement does not necessarily prove children are passing the virus to others."

They pass everything else to others, but somehow this virus stays magically contained in the little darlings.

[crickets]

5. Miraculous, isn't it? nt

[LizBeth]

6. It doesn't make sense. I was hearing this argument a couple weeks ago and prior hadn't heard it.

It doesn't make sense they get it, but don't pass it.

[dmr]

7. No it doesn't make sense. I find this all suspect.

I don't know who/what is passing this info on, but the timing of it, and with the politics in reopening schools, I find it all very suspicious.

This may be credible, but at this time, I don't trust it.

[GopherGal]

4. Given that it's a novel virus

we are learning about it as we go.
To assume that children are miraculously spared serious disease is to assume that there are no long-term consequences, no lasting damage to lung or other organs.