@MRex
While all that's true
*@JanFebAnyMonth age @MargaretThursday*, with few exceptions people with symptoms have a higher viral load than people without and are therefore thought to be more contagious (ignoring the early presymptomatic period). So more noticeable infections for younger children is a very bad thing for transmission.
I don't know how we get out of this without vaccinating children. And I think child vaccination rates will be very low until a variant makes children very poorly, by which time it's too late.
Yes I agree, we do need to look at vaccinating children.
The other thing that occurred to me on more younger children being found to be positive is that you may find people more inclined to test their younger ones if they think it's positive. So if there's already cases in school, then you may find people deciding to test "just in case" or people testing with non-standard symptoms, which naturally will pick up more.
I don't think that's the only thing, but it might add into the number of positives. What's the current positivity rates for those ages?
One thing that, looking at the heat maps, is that earlier the under 15 age categories never seemed to be badly hit compared with older ones. (obviously for some of that the schools were shut, so that will effect it) Then the Kent one arrived and the 10-14 seemed to be hit first. in our area you can see 10-14 age hitting first and going up and down when the local schools shut/reopened. Then it going out to older age categories.
Is that because they hadn't been so badly effected before so there was more potential for transmission? Or is it that that variant effected younger more?
But now looking at the Bolton, the 5-9yos hit purple status only a day after the secondary school age and before the adults. It's the highest rate /100k it's been there. Is the Indian variant going even younger?
Children need to be vaccinated before there's a problem, not after or during.