@Reastie
I’ve been thinking about the crazy data of cases and hospitalisations in preschool children mentioned on this thread and I’ve got a potential hypothesis. Could it be that preschoolers that have covid are testing negative because it’s so difficult to physically test them so not enough sample is getting in the test when parents do it to show a positive in positive cases. They could get a false negative because of this and in actuality many of the cases go undetected (but then picked up once in hospital and testing is done by a trained professional).
This one's been said a lot. Some things that go missing in the "nobody tests preschoolers" theory:
1) Nurseries require testing, so they're actually tested more than many adults.
2) As I have a preschooler - yes it's hard to test because he cries, inconclusive test early on shows you have to get enough cells - so that provides the fall-back.
3) I also know quite a few who have tested positive, when their families had covid, plus two whose vaccinated parents didn't catch it but they got it from nursery.
4) How exactly is it that the adults around them aren't testing positive, when each pre-schooler stands accused of secretly having covid multiple times by now?
5) Little ones catch a LOT of viruses, this is normal. Many of the viruses have similar symptoms. They are not all covid, and hospital testing has shown huge spikes of RSV, rhinovirus and adenovirus at different times.
6) Sadly we know maternal fever can cause early labour; multiple times we have seen reports that many hospital child cases are neo-natal. There is also hospital acquired infection risk for other kids on wards.
7) With every increase in viral load from a new variant, younger age ranges have been disproportionately affected. This shows bigger infectivity, not that nobody bothered testing the teenagers, then started but didn't bother testing primary etc. Omicron is likely to affect younger ages because of higher viral load, we don't yet know how much younger nor how severely.
It would be nice for a bit of logic around the topic, because the casual "kids must be the only spreaders of viruses" is getting really irritating nearly 2 years on.