One area of the pandemic causing confusion revolves around children. Early in the pandemic, lots of folks promoted the notion that children don’t get COVID-19. Or, at least don’t suffer from it as badly. Or that they could get it, but they were only asymptomatic spreaders.
So, as with most things, there was a great deal of confusion early on. And people could be forgiven for that, given the mixed messaging out there.
At the beginning of March, Allison Pearson, a columnist for the Telegraph — who just today Tweeted that COVID-19 poses almost no risk to working age people — wrote that Coronavirus doesn’t infect children.
Even the Director-General of the World Health Organisation said that relatively few cases are seen in children.
And Time magazine in April said, “If there’s one glimmer of hope … in the past few months, it’s that young children seem to avoid more serious illness.’
But not everyone has been convinced.
When Denmark reopened schools and day care in April, many parents resisted, fearing a second wave of infection. Many were quoted in a World Economic Forum piece, questioning why their children should be used as guinea pigs. And shortly after Denmark’s R number rose from 0.6 to 0.9.
But reports of a new diagnosis in children began making their way into the press a couple weeks ago, and this was made official when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo spoke at a press conference about a mysterious inflammatory illness linked to coronavirus that killed at least three children in New York.
New York officials said they are investigating two other deaths possibly linked to the new illness, which presents symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome. Health officials are also monitoring 85 possible cases, mostly in children between toddler and elementary school ages.
Is this coronavirus? Officials believe so. Now, it could also be a secondary infection. But the symptoms are similar, the impact deadly, and the spread seems to be increasing.
So the answer is, yes, children do get coronavirus, they do spread coronavirus, and even though it may present itself differently, the impact can be just as severe.