With parents and policymakers agonising over when to reopen schools as lockdowns ease, scientists are still struggling to find out how the new coronavirus affects children.
Children could be less infectious because they do not have as many symptoms and do not cough, French expert Arnaud Fontanet told a parliamentary hearing last week.
But a German study last month led by virologist Christian Drosten, an adviser to Angela Merkel, concluded that children had a viral load comparable to that of adults.
They “could be as contagious”, it added.
While youngsters can become infected with the new coronavirus, very few have died or contracted serious symptoms. But could they still spread contagion?
This is one of the few questions where there is broad agreement. Only a tiny proportion of children appear to have become seriously ill with COVID-19.
“There are three key questions: How much do children get COVID-19; how badly does it affect them; and do they spread it to others?” said Russell Viner, President of Britain’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
“We only have good data about the second of these.”
“Research indicates that children and adolescents are just as likely to become infected as any other age group and can spread the disease,” says the World Health Organization.
But this is not reflected in global official data about the virus, with many countries largely focusing their COVID-19 testing on those who have gone to hospital with severe symptoms.
Initially researchers believed they could be spreading the disease, drawing comparisons with other viruses like the flu where children help accelerate infections.
But recent studies on the new coronavirus suggest that they are less likely to transmit the virus.
