kids remain a petri dish of covid spread

in ontario, more cases of covid-19 are appearing in people under the age of 20, according to new research from the university of guelph .

israel has seen 627 students and faculty infected since reopening its schools. 168 schools have closed and 21,807 students and staff remain in isolation. in the u.s., washington state has seen a 10 per cent decline in cases in adults age 60 years and older and a 20 per cent increase in people age 0 to 39.

the u.k. reported 24 respiratory outbreaks in schools this week. and in germany, the percentage of youth under 19 years old infected (7.5 per cent) had surpassed adults (6.5 per cent) and seniors (2.9 per cent).

last month, healthing looked at the available research on children and covid-19 and found that while children have more protection compared to adults, they are still as infectious as adults.

a new study published in nature suggests youth under 20 are half as susceptible compared to adults over 20, and also less likely to show symptoms if infected. this supports the idea of children returning to school this fall. however, the study does not look at how infected children could transmit to adults — a lingering concern many physicians have.

one preprint study on household transmission found children in israel were 85 per cent as much as infectious as adults.

this week, toronto’s hospital for sick children released guidelines for children returning to school this september. several pediatric epidemiologists and infectious diseases physicians have expressed concerns for the assumptions it makes based on limited knowledge.

8/
2) #faceshield instead of #mask for teachers - kids need to see facial expressions + benefit from being able to read lips
(kids w mask touch their faces ++ vs shield =no nose-picking/nail-biting - anecdotal but #faceshieldsforall should be explored further by #phac as option)

— nisha thampi (@nishaottawa) june 18, 2020

south korea, for example, has been slowly reopening schools since late may with implemented school safety. the country has also been applauded for its testing and contact tracing infrastructure to reduce community transmission.

(4/18) the first is a peculiar review by jonas ludvigsson. in it, ludvigsson writes: "so far there have been no reports of covid-19 outbreaks in swedish schools."

and yet, school outbreaks have occurred in sweden, including one in which a teacher died.https://t.co/k8achawzqy

— dr zoë hyde (@drzoehyde) june 18, 2020

in an interview with the national post , dr. david fisman, head of the epidemiology division at the university of toronto’s school of public health, says masks should be mandatory, given the amount of evidence it has on preventing further spread of the virus.

dduong@postmedia.com | @dianaduo

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