Most up to date science re. young children?

[wejammin]

DH and I are trying to decide whether to send DC3 (18 months old) back to nursery when it reopens. I can absolutely weigh up the pros and cons re emotional health and wellbeing for him, and us (working from home, homeschooling older kids, his need for stimulation etc) but I can't at all figure out the scientific risk factors to make a properly informed decision. I feel like we're going round in circles.
Can anyone with a scientific background point to the most up to date, peer reviewed, large scale study re risk of both effects of covid in children and their probability of being spreaders? Or is that asking the impossible?

Following with interest too. My nursery is reopening on 3rd, and debating whether to send DS in. I'm so sick of having to entertain him all day

Here is a bunch of relevant SAGE links you might want to read:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/886998/s0301-susceptibility-transmission-in-children-sage30.pdf

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/887014/s0300-tfc-modelling-behavioural-science-relaxing-school-closures-sage31.pdf

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/886995/s0258-viner-eggo-susceptibility-transmission-in-children-updates-250420-sage30.pdf

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/886994/s0257-sage-sub-group-modelling-behavioural-science-relaxing-school-closures-sage30.pdf

Better to be sick of entertaining them all day than just sick with Covid

Minitheminx I think it's comments like that are massively unhelpful just fear mongering. Following with interest.

And the comment I replied to just reeks of self interest.

Thanks @NotAnotherUserNumber, that's the kind of thing I was looking for. The second attachment is interesting, it seems like reopening Early years has less impact than primary settings.
The docs also suggest that it's not the actual settings reopening themselves that can increase the R rate, but the fact that as a result other things relax, like people going back to work or using public transport.
Very helpful, thank you.

Yes I thought that was interesting. All of the various models seem to suggest that children returning to school has far less impact than whether the rest of the public continues to follow the rules.

As I understand this, I think it is because children on whole, especially younger children, have limited chains of contact compared to adults on average. It’s especially interesting that the third document I linked to actually says that the choice of which scenario of school returns to do has an affect a whole order of magnitude lower than adherence to existing community measures! I wish more people understood this.

Whether you send your children back to school seems to be inconsequential compared to whether you stick to the rules and only meet with one single person outside your household, only go to shops when necessary, stay 2m apart etc. So anyone who isn’t strictly following all the other rules should have no concerns at all about children returning to school.

I wouldn't be worried about the risk to your DC. The overwhelming evidence suggests that children are at extremely low risk. There were no deaths of children under 9 attributed to Covid in the UK in April, according to the ONS (search for ONS Covid deaths by age and it will come up). Someone will come here in a minute, I'm sure, to tell me about Kawasaki. The Kawasaki Society says there are less cases than normal at the moment, so personally I wouldn't be too worried about that either.

If everyone else in your family is healthy, and you're under 45, the risks to the rest of you are also pretty low. The BBC radio programme More Or Less had a segment on this the other day - talking about schools going back but relevant to this - which would be worth listening to as it stated what the risks were, I can't remember exactly the level but it wasn't high. Personally it's a level of risk I'd be happy with.

If anyone in your family is vulnerable or over 65, then you're making quite a different calculation, and it really depends on your circumstances.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/datasets/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveydata

www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/22/children-covid-19-adults-data-coronavirus

This is good because it's a review so appraises lots of other studies. However it is not peer reviewed or printed yet, as along with lots of other studies the research s moving very fast and they are being reported on before having gone through the usual processes. But Im sure I remember the Guardian reporting on comments from the WHO, along the lines of children rarely being the index cases in houses which were infected with covid19.

Although actually, Im sure the ONS found in their study that children were as likely to be infected as adults.

We're all under 45 in our household, adhering to all the rules (god I miss seeing my mum!), all in good health, so this is very reassuring.

Closing schools during pandemics has already been studied in depth, so go ahead and ‘follow the science’.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/208354

@Bignet182 thank you for your comment and the article which I will read as soon as I can as it looks pretty long.

However I assume the 'follow the science' is meant sarcastically and I'm already confused enough about all this as it is so could you please explain your comment so I understand your viewpoint? I don't mean to be facetious, just struggling with anything not laid out in black and white.