Study Finds Older Children Spread COVID-19 to Others Just as Easily as Adults Do
THOSE COVID KIDDOS
A study of nearly 65,000 people in South Korea found that older children transmit the new coronavirus to others just as easily as adults do, contrary to the perception that the virus affects young people to a lesser degree than the elderly. According to the study’s results, children up to age 10 spread the virus much less than adults do, but children ages 10 to 19 are just as likely as adults to give it to someone else. “I fear that there has been this sense that kids just won’t get infected or don’t get infected in the same way as adults,” Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota, told The New York Times. “There will be transmission.” President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have pushed for schools in the United States to reopen for classes as usual in the coming months despite rising cases of COVID-19 across the country. In Israel, school reopening led to a surge of cases among students and their parents: Nearly half of all Israelis who tested positive for the virus in June became infected at schools.