This study is small and has limitations, but it's consistent with another study by @c_drosten which I wrote about here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/health/coronavirus-children-transmission-school.html …
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The new study, in JAMA Pediatrics, is small and has some limitations. BUT it's pretty convincing that kids have a lot of virus in their upper respiratory tract. so if they're not transmitting, it's for completely other reasons 3/x
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Kids might not be able to transmit much because they have smaller lungs, speak softer and are shorter. But as
@JumoDr said, they'd shed what's in their nose & throat, not lungs. If height is an issue, they would transmit to other kids. and speak softer--have you met my kids? 4/x9 replies 39 retweets 133 likesShow this thread -
I know people will say, well, of course symptomatic kids have more virus. The study tried to control for that as well as they could. But also, hi, asymptomatic transmission is a thing in adults, so why not in kids? 5/x
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Because we have epidemiology data for adults. These are *symptomatic*’kids whose rarity is an unsolved puzzle and whose epidemiological data is going the other way from adults. That’s the difference.
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Replying to @zeynep @apoorva_nyc and
(Also there’s other data on kids under five being more vulnerable. For some reason it is 5 to ~14 with the different pattern and ticking up from there. I always wondered why day cares are open if the elementary schools are not.)
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It includes kids above 5, too. And the symptoms are mild, so I’m not so sure they are as rare as you are suggesting.
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Yes I was pointing to kids under five having potentially higher loads. Symptomatic kids (5-~14) are disproportionately rare in almost all studies in all countries. Ticks up but still relatively fewer after that too. Seems pretty undisputed, no? Part of the puzzle.
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Maybe, maybe not? There are huge numbers of asymptomatic adults, too. Could be as simple as who has somewhat recently been exposed to a common cold coronavirus. I’m just not sure the epidemiology on asymptomatic adults is any different than kids—we don’t know enough about either
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I disagree. We have six months of data, the children are clearly different and it is a puzzle. And so many papers from so many countries do show symptomatic kids are relatively rare. I think it’s fairly undisputed by now. Solid review I’m sure you’ve seen. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms2024920 …
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The puzzle isn’t solved, but showing symptomatic kids, whose rarity is the question at hand, resemble adults isn’t solving the puzzle. Nice to have but we already had a German study showing that. We need studies on all children, hopefully.
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