Concerned coronavirus is riskier in Children than people think ??

[nonameme]

Firstly, I'm not trying to 'scaremonger' or otherwise influence anything. Governments will do what they do regardless. I am aware of Children delaying education, and concern for school as Childcare for jobs and the economy.

I've been trying to find studies on coronavirus and Children.

I found this European study -

www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30177-2/fulltext

582 cases, 4 tragic deaths.

0.69% fatality rate.

That's a whole fucking lot higher rate than flu in Children.

Please, Please don't think I'm trying to scaremonger, I would be happy to see proof to the contrary, I'm trying to think that this study was at a time where testing capacity in some of the countries studied out with hospitals was low, that there are some asymptomatic cases, that we will know more.

If we allow COVID to rip through our schools though ?? Which it absolutely WILL without a lot of measures in place. The nonsense about Kids not spreading has been well debunked.

I'm honestly not trying to scaremonger but that rate scared me..

Does anyone else feel the same ??

@PatriciaHolm

Thank you for that. How many cases total in those statistics for the 10 - 19 age group ?? I'll take a look but if I can't find it would be grateful if someone could point me in the right direction.

@PatriciaHolm

Thanks for that

Sweden have keep class sizes small and they are keeping yo bubbles and have the facilities and investment to do this.

Not that small. My son has 26 in his class and there's no bubbles that I know of. What I think does make a difference though is drop off and collection. Parents can drop off any time from 6.00 am and collect any time until 6.00 pm (you have to tell them in advance). This means that there's no school gate congestion. Today I saw just 1 other parent across the playground as I picked DS up and nobody when I dropped him off.

I really think we would know by now.

I’m very worried about mental
Health problems though

FatCatThinCat

How many teachers have been affected and/or died?

www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden-schools-idUSKCN24G2IS

This refers to a Public Health report from Sweden, looking at Finland and Sweden, saying there was

"A comparison of the incidence of COVID-19 in different professions suggested no increased risk for teachers. "

10400 ish 0-19 have had a lab confirmed positive Covid test. 4700 ish of them are in the 15-19 age group. (In England) so that shows the skew to older children and young adults.

We have over 300K positive UK tests and 46K deaths, of which a handful are children and the vast majority of those have underlying health conditions

The risk to children is vanishly small.

Even on the maths with a confirmed test, which Is pretty crude as we know many more people have had Covid without a test. 46/300 (thousand) indicates 15% of those who are tested positive die.
The same maths for the under 19 group gives you about 0.5-1% and that's of those who get it which isn't the death rate.

Even out of those 46K who have sadly died, the vast majority are over a certain age AND have underlying conditions

Closing schools was never ever about children's risk it was about community spread and spreading to their vulnerable grandparents

Scotland positive cases age 5-14 are a total of 119. Age 15-19, a total of 214.

public.tableau.com/profile/phs.covid.19#!/vizhome/COVID-19DailyDashboard_15960160643010/Overview

According to this, up to 20 kids (many previously healthy) die from chickenpox every year. Yet many parents do not vaccinate even though there is a tried and tested one available (albeit at a cost some can't afford)

patient.info/news-and-features/should-your-child-have-the-chickenpox-vaccine

Now of course, there are many more cases of chickenpox every year than covid currently. But there are likely to be far far more cases of covid than the 500+ you quote. The on going ONS study seems to suggest that 70% of Covid infections are asymptomatic. Given that children tend to get it more mildly than adults, I would expect this figure to be even higher for children. Most children will not have symptoms, and a minority will have minor symptoms. A tiny number will have it seriously enough to require hospital treatment, but even amongst those, most children will pull though. The risks to their mental and physical health from not going to school are a much bigger worry in my mind.

@JassyRadlett

What she says

*Children were still at school during March. In London, the peak was around 2-3 April (would need to check exact dates).

Meaning the peak of infection was well before schools closed. It would be very unlikely with the infection rate we had in mid-March, we would not have seen impacts in children then and over the last 5 months that will become evident in the autumn.*

So many people so much exaggeration about the risk to children - I'm surprised these people ever go out/cross a road/drive a car/fly in a plane/go swimming/walk in the countryside/go to work.... it's all getting a bit silly now with post after post catastrophising/dementing/exaggerating....

It feels a bit like that comedy sketch on here

We're all doomed.... doomed I tell you

[hmn]

My ds is one of those pesky kids who 'has a pre-existing condition', he has been shielding until now. I do not feel confident in him returning to school safely.

The recent discussions of having to balance the risks of opening pubs v the risks of opening schools...does nothing to ease any concerns we have.

Why the fuck we are also being put in a position where we will be fined for keeping him off (if shielding remains paused), when this government has proven their ongoing incompetence...is beyond me.

Hi everyone,
This is my very first post, (Sorry it’s so long) I have created an account just so I could write on here about what happened to my family way back in February half term. Someone earlier mentioned their nurse friend had said about lots of children In hospital with breathing problems back in Feb. My 6 year old daughter began to cough during the Feb half term, she was otherwise well and no other symptoms until returning to school the following week, she then started to get a temperature and we kept her off school, I rang the gp and had a call back, they weren’t concerned and said to see how she goes over the weekend. She was still very hot by the Monday (2nd March) and coughing to point she was sick so we called the GP again. This time I took her in, her oxygen level was low and her temp was 39-40 so the dr sent us to the hospital straight away. She was put on oxygen straight away and had an X-ray. It showed infection in her lungs and the Drs couldn’t be sure but looked like fluid also. She stayed in hospital on oxygen and 2 different antibiotics for 6 days. On the 3rd night in hospital her oxygen levels dropped even more. When the consultant came the following day he said after looking at her X-ray again and speaking to the radiologist he could see fluid (pneumonia) and also swollen lymph nodes around her heart. He also said to expect her to get worse before she gets better, fortunately in the following days she her oxygen levels improved enough for us to go home. She only returned to school for 4 days before they closed. Every dr and nurse we spoke to that week asked us if we had been abroad, we hadn’t so no Covid test was ever done. The consultant even asked if she had been near anyone with TB. After she got home my 2 other older daughters started to cough and had temps but thankfully they got better after a few weeks. I don’t think we will ever know if she had Covid the Drs would not test her but just said it was a virus. I wanted to say while we were in the hospital the children’s ward was very busy. Lots of children on oxygen, if it wasn’t Covid then there was a very nasty virus going around back in feb/March. My daughter had a follow up X-ray in April and got the all clear.

@PatriciaHolm

I meant in England, how do I find how many confirmed cases in the 10 - 19 age group ?? I've been trying but I can't find that info on number of cases.

coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/cases?areaType=nation&areaName=England

Cases in the 10-19 age group = 6,831.

So - in England - 22 deaths out of 6,831 confirmed cases in the 10 - 19 age group.

22 as a percentage of 6,831 = 0.32% fatality rate in the 10 - 19 age group.

Scary percentage if it rips through schools.

@Bupkis

My ds is one of those pesky kids who 'has a pre-existing condition', he has been shielding until now. I do not feel confident in him returning to school safely.

The recent discussions of having to balance the risks of opening pubs v the risks of opening schools...does nothing to ease any concerns we have.

Why the fuck we are also being put in a position where we will be fined for keeping him off (if shielding remains paused), when this government has proven their ongoing incompetence...is beyond me.

In your position I would happily accept the fine and if I couldn't pay it I would look forward to my day in court to explain. The education system in this country is bonkers.

22 as a percentage of 6,831 = 0.32% fatality rate in the 10 - 19 age group.

That is a case fatality rate, not infection fatality rate. That is of those ill enough to be tested at a particular point in time.

If you can, you should look at when those deaths occurred vs the availability of testing at that time (ie if the deaths were mostly when only hospital cases were being tested it suggests a much lower IFR than if they largely happened when broader symptomatic community testing became available.)

Nonameme

But that's out of tested cases! There will have been thousands more untested cases that we are unaware of. So the actual death rate will be far far lower!

@JassyRadlett

22 as a percentage of 6,831 = 0.32% fatality rate in the 10 - 19 age group.

That is a case fatality rate, not infection fatality rate. That is of those ill enough to be tested at a particular point in time.

If you can, you should look at when those deaths occurred vs the availability of testing at that time (ie if the deaths were mostly when only hospital cases were being tested it suggests a much lower IFR than if they largely happened when broader symptomatic community testing became available.)

Yes, that's kind of what I'm trying to work out, but I don't have the statistical knowledge to analyse that. Certainly there were more cases than were able to be tested up until testing was operational.

The table above gave more insight into actual rates, you saw that. It showed that only 0.74% of cases seemed to be recorded in the 10-19 age group, and an infection fatality rate of 0.002%. Nowhere near 0.32%.

Because @nonameme that kind of data that you want simply doesnt exist (not enough children tested) and the article you posted states the risk to children is low. If you read the article you post as showing that it is riskier than people think when it shows nothing of the sort and a desire to find out the exact fatality rate

The danger for schools opening is to do with the fact children are transmitters of it - particularly it seems the under 5s. Community spread is a worry and a concern

The death rate in children is thankfully pretty low, however we do not know the long term effects of this virus on children, or indeed asymptomatic adults. This virus has only been around for just over 6 months, there is so much scientists still don't understand.

I think a long term study is needed, antigen testing of children, those negative have heart scans, lung function tests, blood tests, etc and followed up periodically, perhaps even a cross section of the adult population to see how it affects them as well.

There are viruses like herpes zoster, shingles caused by reactivation of the chickenpox virus, we don't know if Covid-19 has the potential to do this as well.

Until we understand more about this virus the death rate is only one factor in the severity of it.

@mosquitofeast

Schools were open for most of March in London when infections were increasing exponentially so you would expect to have seen lots of bad cases then if this were the case.

we did, we saw dozens of children in intensive care, and several deaths, in my part of London

Who is saying we didn't?

We have many children left impaired, unable to walk up stairs , for example, because of lung scarring. 2 in my tutor group alone. And a child who has not yet regained her hearing, in the same school. These might improve, or might not. No one knows.

@mosquitofeast

Statistics say, as of end oh June, 71 children under 18 in PICU and 20 deaths. Unfortunate and very tragic to be in an area with so many paediatric deaths. This, thankfully, is not the norm.

Here is a website with some very clear (though very slightly out of date) info about class sizes in Europe. Primary classes in the UK appear to be far larger than anywhere else. Secondary classes tend to be smaller, but my hunch is that this is because of the different way options are chosen. I would imagine that for core subjects, class sizes are far higher that the average.

jakubmarian.com/average-class-size-by-country-in-europe/

OP

Please go onto twitter and follow Alasdair Munro.

He’s a consultant paed at Southampton and writes brilliant threads summarising and explaining the latest data of n kids and schools.

He’s got a brilliant thread going right now summarising all the latest studies from around the world.

I really think it would provide the data you’re looking for and put your mind at rest.