How High Is the Infection Rate of COVID-19 in Kids? Open the Schools to Find Out.
Sending children back to school in person is truly an experiment in the spread of COVID-19.
According to this August 14, 2020, Center for Disease Control (CDC) update:
While children comprise 22% of the US population, recent data show that 7.3% of all cases of COVID-19 in the United States reported to CDC were among children (as of August 3rd, 2020). The number and rate of cases in children in the United States have been steadily increasing from March to July 2020.
The CDC continues:
Due to community mitigation measures and school closures, transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to and among children may have been reduced in the United States during the pandemic in the spring and early summer of 2020. This may explain the low incidence in children compared with adults.
And now, for the continued, school-opening experiment:
Comparing trends in pediatric infections before and after the return to in-person school and other activities may provide additional understanding about infections in children.
So, closing schools may have reduced the spread of COVID-19 in children, and now that schools are reopening, we’ll just have to see in real time exactly how high the infection rate in children will go. In its May 20, 2020, update (archived here on June 01, 2020), the CDC had COVID-19 cases in children 18 and under at 2 percent. The CDC continued to post this 2-percent infection rate among children in July, a statistic that surely seems to support the opening of school buildings for in-person instruction.
Now, based upon data from March to July 2020, the CDC notes that infection in CONTINUE READING: How High Is the Infection Rate of COVID-19 in Kids? Open the Schools to Find Out. | deutsch29