Children With COVID-19 May Be Less Contagious Than Adults, Two UK Epidemiologists Say

Children With COVID-19 May Be Less Contagious Than Adults, Two UK Epidemiologists Say
A student walks inside a francophone primary school during its reopening in Jumet, as a small part of Belgian children head back to their schools with new rules and social distancing measures, during the outbreak of the CCP virus in Jumet, Belgium, on May 18, 2020. Yves Herman/Reuters
Reuters
Updated:

LONDON—There are tentative signs that children may not spread the CCP virus as much as adults, two top epidemiologists said on May 19, though they cautioned that the bad news was that human immunity may not last that long.

As Europe and the United States start to return to work after lockdowns imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, world leaders are trying to work out when it is safe for children and students to get back to their studies.

Dr. Rosalind Eggo, an infectious disease modeler at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said she had seen some indications from research that children may not spread the CCP virus as much as adults.

“There are hints that children are less infectious but it is not certain,” Eggo, who sits on a panel that advises the British government about the transmission of COVID-19 among children and within schools, told the science committee of the House of Lords, the second chamber of Britain’s parliament.

Eggo said that for children who show no sign of being infected it was very difficult to tell how contagious they were, though she said there was a little bit of evidence starting to appear that there may be a lower possibility of infection from them.

“We need more studies to really pin this down as it is so important,” Eggo said.

She said that her research had shown that there was a much lower level of symptomatic infection in those under 20 years-old—perhaps as little as 20 percent of infections showing clinical symptoms.

“We think that children are less likely to get it so far but it is not certain,” she said. “We are very certain that children are less likely to have severe outcomes.”

Eggo could not immediately be reached for further comment on the research she was referring to.

Children wearing face masks leave their elementary school at the end of the day in Xindian District, New Taipei, Taiwan, on March 3, 2020. (Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images)
Children wearing face masks leave their elementary school at the end of the day in Xindian District, New Taipei, Taiwan, on March 3, 2020. Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty Images

Immunity May Not Last

John Edmunds, a member of Britain’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), told the same science committee hearing that it was striking how children did not seem to play much of a role in spreading the CCP virus.
French Education and Youth Affairs Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer wearing a mask meets children as he visits a school in Paris, France, on May 11, 2020. It was the first day of France's easing of lockdown measures that had been in place for 55 days to curb the spread of the CCP virus.  (Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images)
French Education and Youth Affairs Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer wearing a mask meets children as he visits a school in Paris, France, on May 11, 2020. It was the first day of France's easing of lockdown measures that had been in place for 55 days to curb the spread of the CCP virus.  Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

“It is unusual that children don’t seem to play much of a role in transmission because for most respiratory viruses and bacteria they play a central role, but in this they don’t seem to,” said Edmunds, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“There is only one documented outbreak associated with a school—which is amazing; you would normally expect most of the outbreaks to be associated with schools but yet in global literature there is only one documented study,” Edmunds said, citing a study of a French secondary school. “It is pretty remarkable.”

He said that, more broadly, the evidence of transmission from asymptomatic individuals—which may be about 30 or 40 percent of adults—was not clear.

But he added there was potentially bad news—that human immunity to the CCP virus may not last long.

“Antibody responses decline over time from survivors of SARS so after a couple of years their antibodies have declined quite significantly,” Edmunds said, referring to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which is also caused by a type of CCP virus.

“We can also see from other coronaviruses—the ones that cause coughs and colds—that individuals again do seem to not have particularly long-term immunity to many of those viruses and so allowing them to be infected later.

“So that’s potentially bad news for us: that immunity may not last that long against this virus,” he said.

By Guy Faulconbridge
Epoch Times staff contributed to this report.