[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Arles

Has anyone got information on the impact on kids? I've seen some higher death rates for older people, but I haven't seen much data on the impact to kids.

Preliminary data shows kids are at less risk and as of right now science can't explain why. IIRC, even in China, there hadn't been a death reported of any child age 9 or younger.

Access Denied

Why Are Kids at Lower Risk?
Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus of infectious diseases and vaccinology at the University of California—Berkeley School of Public Health, adds a note of caution. Yes, he says, “the preliminary epidemiological data suggest that children don’t seem to get as sick as adults, but I want to emphasize that this is very preliminary data out of China.”

However, the CDC reports that this is consistent with data from past coronavirus outbreaks, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or SARS-CoV, and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS-CoV, where infection among children was “relatively uncommon” in those outbreaks.

The reasons for this remain a mystery. “Nobody understands why,” Murphy says. “It just appears not to be impacting them to any significant degree compared to teens and adults.” Swartzberg is willing to speculate, though he says, “these are only guesses. There is no science to support it.” One guess is that the virus first entered adults and has mostly spread from adult to adult, so it may be genetically predisposed somehow to affect older people. Another guess is based on the fact that other forms of the coronavirus are very common in children. “About one-third of all coronavirus infections are in children, so the idea is that maybe children are getting these other coronaviruses and that may be some protection. But again, this is all conjecture.”

Swartzberg also stresses: “We don’t even know for certain that (children) are getting less disease. There are less than two months of data. We don’t know, in children and adults, how many are infected and don’t even have any symptoms. There could be a lot of us walking around with (what seems like) colds who have this, or they may be asymptomatic.” That, of course, would make the disease and death rates even lower than already thought.