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NEW: Remember the South Korean study on kids' transmission that had everyone talking?
Well. The study had a big flaw.
Doesn't change the upshot of what we know, but a flaw nonetheless. 1/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/health/older-children-and-the-coronavirus-a-new-wrinkle-in-the-debate.html
Well. The study had a big flaw.
Doesn't change the upshot of what we know, but a flaw nonetheless. 1/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/health/older-children-and-the-coronavirus-a-new-wrinkle-in-the-debate.html
To jog your memory, the original study said kids under 10 transmit less often than adults and kids 10-19 transmit *more*. I never bought the latter, so in my article, for eg, we went with "as well as" and noted the "more than" was probably a fluke. 2/ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/18/health/coronavirus-children-schools.html
But now a new study by the same South Korean team has an explanation for that weird finding. This study looked only at older kids, this time 10-17, many of whom were also included in the original study (not all, the two studies spanned different dates, apart from ages). /3
It turns out that at least some of the household members who seemed to have been infected by older children in the first study shared an exposure with those children—and could have been infected by that shared contact. /4
Again, this does not change the overall body of evidence. Younger kids get infected, but maybe less than adults. Younger kids transmit, but maybe less than adults. And the risk of both may increase with age as kids approach adulthood. /5
The problem in all the kid studies has so far been that they are just hugely variable. Their age groupings, the transmission rates in the community, whether they tested everyone or only symptomatic people, whether they identified index case as the first person with contacts... /6
The biggest lesson from all this according to @apsmunro @BillHanage @nataliexdean and even Young June Choe, the author: Don’t just look at one study when making decisions about education & health. Look at the whole body of evidence. /7
The body of evidence on kids and transmission still points to:
Kids get infected.
Kids transmit.
Young kids may transmit less than older kids. /8 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/health/older-children-and-the-coronavirus-a-new-wrinkle-in-the-debate.html
Kids get infected.
Kids transmit.
Young kids may transmit less than older kids. /8 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/health/older-children-and-the-coronavirus-a-new-wrinkle-in-the-debate.html
oh and oops, btw, tweet 6 should say index case is first person with symptoms, not contacts
