Many sound studies show children are infectious and I’d tend towards believing those. Children were not having issues when schools opened with small bubbles of 5 or so children and the overall infection rates had been brought under control through restrictions, which doesn’t mean to say they aren’t infectious when infected. It has always seemed unusual to suggest infected children would not spread the virus at all, they have no true understanding of hygiene until they’re older and spread other viruses. I just had a child drink from my sons water bottle (5-6yo) at school - just shows how much they are in contact. 30 children is a huge bubble and no evidence I could find proved any safety with bubbles that size. Children will touch faces, cough and forget to wash hands etc. They don’t have good judgement for what a metre is and are not encouraged to be wearing masks, which could be tricky if evidence finds they are spreading even for shorter time frames. I don’t think any other viral illness is not passed on by children (could be wrong so do correct this if I am), so this points to me that the sensible conclusion is they do spread when infected.
The main point at the beginning was lack of solid evidence and a large amount of variables, which is not really the same as ‘they don’t spread it’, despite the message given. There are differing opinions on this, but recent studies have demonstrated high viral loads in children (in Chicago they were under 5yo) with the virus, that and that asymptomatic spreaders can spread for weeks without being noticed. The possibility that more children are asymptomatic may be why they were seen as not spreading the virus, as they were less likely to have gone to hospital and tested positive originally. Another study, in Northern Italy during March and April, based around contact tracing of more than 1,000 cases of Covid-19 found that children from birth to age 14 had a higher risk of passing the virus onto others than any other age group. Their risk of transmitting the virus was 22.4% – over twice that of adults aged 30-49. Studies like this make more sense, based on what we know of other viruses, but to be definite we have to wait for lots of strong evidence and extra studies that explore the whys. (Eg. Are children infectious for less time, but with higher viral loads so have a short highly infectious period but less time to spread it around etc.) The Italian findings were also the younger the child, the higher the viral load in their nose.
Recent outbreaks in a number of schools support they do spread the virus. The NIHR are currently doing a study on transmission in children with schools now reopen. One issue in the UK is the lack of good tracing information. In other countries, tracing data does support transmission where children are meeting without restrictions (eg. No masks, large bubbles that are class size or other big groups, general restrictions eased) and particularly where overall case numbers are higher (making it more likely children have come into contact with an infected person).
Healthy children are less at risk of death, but we don’t know whether long term effects will occur, it’s possible. Those who catch it and do get seriously ill are at risk of multi system inflammatory Syndrome. A number of studies strongly suggested maximum caution reopening education centres, but this was ignored by the government who’s policy for younger children (seen as not able to social distance, not asked to wear masks) is simply to remove communal school areas and provide hand washing materials, not to follow the smaller bubbles proved useful and safer in studies. This approach is literally a ‘if they get it, they get it’ scenario and tells parents and schools to rely on Test and Trace heavily in every document. It’s based on recording those who get it, not attempting to prevent children picking it up. Unfortunately, we are yet to have a properly performing test and trace, and so can only rely on a wink and a wish to get through with some biting sarcasm in letters to MPs. Oh, and a nice fine if we feel our families are not safe with our children at school and want to keep them off without losing our school place.