People Under 20 Less Likely to Get Coronavirus

 

By Ralph Ellis

Young people don't contract the coronavirus nearly as often as older people, a new study says, and they don't show symptoms as often.

The study published Tuesday in Nature found that people under age 20 are half as likely to get COVID-19 as the rest of the population. Young people also don't show symptoms as often, especially compared to much older people. Only 21% of people aged 10-19 showed any symptoms of the coronavirus, compared to 69% of people over 70.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine based computer simulations on information about coronavirus transmission from Canada, China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea.

The findings appear to back up observations of the CDC, which says in the U.S. adults get the coronavirus at a much higher rate than children and usually have more severe symptoms.

The study might help officials around the world decide to reopen schools.

The researchers simulated outbreaks of the flu and of COVID-19 and compared how school closures would affect transmission of the diseases. In the simulations as well as in real life, closing schools has helped curb the flu, the study says. But the simulations found that closing schools had a limited effect on curbing COVID-19. "For COVID-19, there was much less of an effect of school closures," said Rosaling Eggo, an infectious disease modeler who co-led the study, according to Reuters.

The median age of a population made a big difference in the expected number of cases. "There were more clinical cases per capita projected in cities with older populations and more sub-clinical projected in cities with younger populations," the study said.

Source: www. webmd.com