Covid and children

[2021ismyyear]

I just have a few questions and hoping someone might know the answer:

I think I’ve read enough about why children don’t get as sick with covid. One being they don’t do the cytokines storm situation as much. And they have less receptors in the lung. It’s good news obviously. But could this change in future? Could it mutate you become more dangerous to kids?

And will vaccinating all the adults and barely any kids push covid to mutate to become more dangerous for younger kids?

Anyone done any reading on this?

Don't have the answer, but I have also wondered about the risk of the virus mutating to become more dangerous to children. My understanding is that if you get to the point where nearly all adults have been vaccinated with an effective vaccine, that will so reduce the total number of infections that there will simply be fewer opportunities for the virus to mutate. My main worry is that the government will open up too quickly with huge numbers of adults still unvaccinated (or still awaiting their second dose).

I don’t understand what’s going to happen if they don’t vaccinate the kids. All these years we’ve been told they are the vectors for the flu, and now they are excluded from the vaccination programme. Will the kids continue having to isolate in order not to spread it round the schools, or will they all be expected to just gain immunity each winter?

This article suggests that the vaccines only work against symptomatic illness, which kids rarely get

www.msn.com/en-gb/health/familyhealth/scientists-say-children-should-be-vaccinated-against-coronavirus/ar-BB1djTXt?ocid=msedgdhp

I’ve been wondering about this. It’s almost tempting to deliberately let my kids get infected now, just in case of future mutations which might make it more dangerous for them. Although I wouldn’t actually do it.

It’s not that kids have been excluded, it’s that ethically trials couldn’t be run that quickly on children. It would have been a choice of much slower vaccine approvals or getting it out for adults now. Children didn’t get the flu one until relatively recently. We also can’t lock down the country until it’s approved and rolled out for children.

My daughter tested positive in lateral flow and then PCR, it's been 6 days now and she has just tested negative on lateral flow again (twice) does Themis mean she no longer has covid??

@Rogvw

My daughter tested positive in lateral flow and then PCR, it's been 6 days now and she has just tested negative on lateral flow again (twice) does Themis mean she no longer has covid??

It means that she probably no longer has a high enough viral load to show positive on a lateral flow - they're not very sensitive. However, she could still be contagious so needs to isolate for the full 10 days.

Lots of people test positive on PCR but negative on lateral flow, that doesn't mean they don't have Covid.

Does that mean that it is easing then?

Has she been very ill? It doesn't necessarily mean the illness is easing because Covid can cause so many related illnesses, it just means the initial infection has lessened within her body.