Study: Children Nearly 60 Percent More Likely Than Older Adults to Spread COVID-19

A University of Florida (UF) epidemiological study in Lancet Infectious Diseases found that children infected with COVID-19 can be nearly 60 percent more likely than adults older than 60 to infect exposed family members, reports News4JAX . Earlier studies determined that children shed SARS-CoV-2 at similar rates as adults, so their higher infectivity may be due to their level of close contact with parents and other relatives. In the latest study, UF and Chinese investigators employed a statistical transmission model to analyze data from more than 27,000 households in Wuhan, the first epicenter of the pandemic. Analysis determined that infants under a year old were significantly more likely to catch COVID-19 than children between two and five, possibly because of a combination of their still-developing immune systems and their close contact with adults. Moreover, persons who were asymptomatic during their infection were 80 percent less contagious than symptomatic ones, while presymptomatic people were about 40 percent more infectious than symptomatic ones. In addition, the secondary attack rate — the likelihood that a person with COVID-19 will infect another member of their household — was 15.6 percent, a rate similar to other respiratory pathogens. Although children were less vulnerable to COVID-19 infection than adults and they generally had less severe symptoms, they were just as likely as adults to become symptomatic.