Is chickenpox as dangerous to children as coronavirus?

[BovvyDazz]

So I can’t decide whether to send my son back to nursery in June. I keep changing my mind. So I’m not evangelical one way or the other.

Been looking at some stats tonight. I’ll quote my sources as it’s Mumsnet:

There have been 12 deaths of under 19s of coronavirus; 3 of which with no underlying conditions in England.

How many cases, I don’t know as we didn’t test the majority of cases up till this week. +100,000 anyway.

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-14-May-2020-2.xlsx

Risk of chickenpox; approx 4 children die each year; with an approx case fatality rate of 2 out of 100,000 (slightly higher for under 4s; lower for over 5s).

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC59681/#!po=2.08333

So whilst there is a lot of unknowns (risk of the inflammatory condition of which one child has died to date in U.K. of), long term effects, and slightly higher risk to parents; for me it appears it’s not vastly greater than the risk of chickenpox, and must be less than the risk of child seriously hurt in a traffic accident in any given time period.

This is the latest stats by age for covid - the missing piece being the case number.

The problem, as we all know, is that schools will spread the disease to the community. Like meat packing plants have done in the US, like carehomes do pretty much everywhere, ditto prisons.

So, you can expect that within weeks or months of school starting, many staff (and some children) will fall ill. Do we close the school at that point to contain the outbreak?

Inevitably, if we reopen schools, some school staff across the UK will die, some will become very ill and may have permanent organ damage. A much smaller number of children will die or become very ill. And that's before we consider the wider community.

I'm not saying schools should not open. But we need to understand that say, in my ds's v large secondary, it is very likely that at least 1 staff member will die based on a 1% fatality rate (also a flawed statistic).

Where did you get 12 children from?

When I was listening to a government advisor on Marr on Sunday he said 2 children under 15nhad Covid on their death certificate.

Obviously that may be out of date, but I would be surprised by such a big jump.

The problem, as we all know, is that schools will spread the disease to the community. Like meat packing plants have done in the US, like carehomes do pretty much everywhere, ditto prisons.

That is the bit we really don't know. Well the kids part in it anyway. If adults in schools cannot social distance from each other then there would be transmission.

There's a vaccine for chickenpox, which I imagine brings the risk of death down dramatically
You imagine wrong. It brings the risk of death for the vaccinated individual down, yes, but that's not what these stats are. This is looking at risk of death if you have chickenpox, which would not include those with the vaccine as they wouldnt get it in the first place.

The difficulty with coronavirus stats across all ages is the prevalence of asymptomatic or very mild symptoms, especially in children. So we could say, for example, that 1 in 100 of adults with coronavirus die, but if there are also 100 people who had it but had no symptoms at all, they wouldnt be included in the category of "adults with coronavirus", and if they were it would bring the death rate right down. We wont know the actual mortality rates until there is far more widespread testing.

@Hadenoughfornow It's one of the very many bits we don't know. But if we're going to make assumptions - and the government is making them just like we are - then based on how children spread other infectious diseases, we can assume (maybe wrongly) that they spread Covid even if not symptomatic.

In which case it won't matter if the adults distance from each other.

At any rate, if anyone tests and tracks after the June openings, we may get a better idea.

Where did you get 12 children from?

When I was listening to a government advisor on Marr on Sunday he said 2 children under 15nhad Covid on their death certificate.

I think the 2 may have been referring to the most recent week for which we have data - I'm pretty sure I've seen higher numbers for this age group on the ONS site in recent weeks, so 12 may be the cumulative total.

Bestof7, those are really dodgy statistics you’re using. Firstly, it’s far from clear the death rate, in a well managed system, would be as high as 1% - probably half that. Secondly, the rate for those under 60 is a lot less, and for below 40, a lot less again. Any teachers who are particularly vulnerable should be allowed to work from home (eg bad asthma, diabetes). Thirdly, social distancing measures should ensure that nowhere near 100% of the school catch it (even if you just ensure different classes don’t mix, handwashing etc). Implying one teacher will die in each school is just ludicrous. The difficulty of course will be understaffing, due to vulnerable staff members.

Also re closing the school - better close one school than all schools. Isn’t that the point of testing and contact tracing? I do agree that UK case numbers are still far too high for much school opening at this stage.

My understanding is that the risk to healthy children is very small.

The main concern is if they catch it and spread it to parents/grandparents/teachers (and from there the wider population).

The comparison with chicken pox is flawed as the NHS DOES vaccinate children who have underlying conditions that make them susceptible to complications against chicken pox eg those with kidney conditions. I have even known a vulnerable child being taken into hospital and being given passive immunity to chicken pox when his sister caught it.

Personally I'd like more research on the affects of virus in children. Given that most of the developed world lockdown their schools there has to be (relatively speaking) a small number of children who have caught it when compared with other, well established viruses. The "new" Kawasaki type reaction to covid in children is an important thing we need more information on. The stats so far is that 100 children in England have been treated for it. While a small number of children relative to the child population of over 12 million its a very significant number of children in a very short space of time to need treatment for such a life threatening reaction all related to the same thing.

powerslide it wasn't.

It was 2 children under 15 up to 1st May.

It was only for England and Wales.

www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-what-are-the-coronavirus-risks-to-children

Op mentions under 19s though - which may account for the difference.

Those stats are deaths only, we (the public, the govt will know this) have no idea how many children have been hospitalised with CV. Another thread I saw on here had 2 nurses saying they currently have 3-5 ventilated children on their wards.

This report shows no statistical difference in the number of people testing positive for CV in different age groups.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/england14may2020

Given that children have been essentially taken out of society by closing schools, asking for children not to be taken to supermarkets unless there is no other choice and social distancing, opportunities for them to get CV have been minimised.

Children are also not eligible for testing unless they are hospitalised or they have a keyworker in the household who is demonstrating symptoms.

The above leaves me concerned about what the stats will show when children go back to school and are eligible for more widespread testing.

I am also concerned that with the host of data made publically available they have chosen not to share the age ranges of those hospitalised in serious condition. Because while I am relieved that children do not seem as likely to die of CV, I am concerned about the likelihood of my child having an elongated hospital stay on a ventilator with goodness only knows what long term consequences.

I know they're dodgy numbers. Dodgy numbers are all we've got. My original point was that we have no idea.

And I am not saying one teacher/school would die - that's ridiculous (I hope!!) or that all would become infected. I said it seemed likely that one staff member (teachers, SEN staff, LSAs, TAs, maintenence, lunch staff, etc) at a large secondary (2000 students) would die. There's over 250 staff members.

Nobody knows yet, I don't think I'd even want to "test" it to see what happens. It's too soon imo and I strongly think the government are only sending children back to get parents back into work to strengthen the economy it's certainly not because it's safe now.

If you can keep your child home I would.

About 25 deaths a year from chicken pox in U.K. 80% in over 80s. Given wide distribution of chicken pox and ease of identification of viral rash, it’s easy to see the mortality for chicken pox is much, much lower.

The risk of death to children from chicken pox is negligible.

I'm shocked, I had no idea chicken pox killed children.

Bestof7, but how is it likely one staff member would die? If one out of 250 dies, that would indicate both a death rate of 0.4% (highly unlikely for working age with vulnerable taken out, the vast majority of deaths are over 60) and a 100% infection rate (highly unlikely with even basic social distancing measures). On what basis are you saying it is likely? That just seems baseless scaremongering to me.

@Hadenoughfornow - You're right, I found the stats on the ONS site too. Not sure what it was that I'd been looking at before.

Is it easy to see mortality from chicken pox is much lower in children? How many children die from chicken pox each year? How many cases of chicken pox are there in the U.K. each year (that may be difficult to ascertain - I know when my DS had CP we didn’t go to the doctor as we knew what it was and we didn’t need to), how many are hospitalised as a result of CP every year?

Chicken pox may be less dangerous to the population as a whole than COVID but if we are talking specifically about children I’m not sure that it is obvious.

The key here is that no one has immunity to COVID, most adults are immune to CP. I’d be very interested to know the projected stats on how many adults would die of chicken pox if it was a novel virus that emerged now and hit the population with no one having immunity.

My nephew had a very close run with chickenpox.
There was a v sad thread on here a few years ago about a little boy who had chicken pox and it spread to his brain. I think he survived but not unscathed.
I know this disease is different as it is new and may have unknown complications but I think the comparisons are reasonable.
Chicken pox is also v dangerous for elderly people. I think this is one reason vaccination isn’t routinely offered here-because the vaccine immunity wears off over a lifetime rendering older people vulnerable.

There have and will always be risks for childhood illnesses.

Cherry-the risk for children of death from Covid is also (currently) negligible.
I’ve read that 300 (need to check source for this) children have died from other things in the time we have been dealing with Covid compared to 2 of Covid

"We could do the same comparison with child road deaths and it would show far more danger to children."

Not really. Because you'd have to calculate it as a proportion of all road journeys involving children to get a rate.

In 2011, 21 children died whilst the passenger of a car. The overall risk of dying in a car is 1 in 20,000, which is 0.005%.

@Trumpeterwolf that's still 0.6% - you'd be told about a consequence with a risk of 0.6% if you were having a medical procedure.

@lougle I don’t think the fact that 0.6% of deaths that occurred in children resulted from COVID amounts to a 0.6% chance of children dying from COVID.