A study from South Korea found that young people from age 10 to 19 years can spread coronavirus as much as adults. However, children below ten years are less likely to cause the transmission of coronavirus.
Despite the outbreak of coronavirus, countries like Finland, South Korea, Denmark, and Israel have reopened the schools and avoided the surge in cases. The findings of the study in South Korea suggested that the reopening of schools in countries might experience a rise in positive cases, including children of all ages.
The research released in the Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Researchers analyzed about 59,073 contact reports for 5,707 COVID-19 infections in South Korea.
Findings reported that young people age 10 to 19 years, when infected, spread the coronavirus to 18.6% of their contacts when they were the first in the household to get infected.
The older adults (age 70-79) are likely to spread coronavirus by 18% of contacts, and those aged 60-69 years can spread COVID-19 to 17% of household contacts. On the contrary, the children below the age of 10 years had 5.3% chances of transmission of coronavirus in their household.
Authors of the study reported that,
“We showed that household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was high if the index patients was 10-19 years of age.”
Therefore the study suggests that,
“The role of household transmission of SARS-CoV-2 amid reopening of schools and loosening of social distancing underscores the need for a time-sensitive epidemiologic study to guide public health policy.”
The authors of the study reported a limitation, as the fact that it lacks contact tracing of asymptomatic cases that do not show symptoms to identify the case to provide the basis for contact tracing.
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Additionally, they suggested that to control the spread of coronavirus; active contact tracing will serve to be most effective. A nationwide contact tracing of COVID-19 in South Korea is adequate to provide appropriate guidelines and evidence-based policies to alleviate the transmission of COVID-19.
