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FRIDAY, Aug. 14, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Children in England had low positivity rates of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) during the first COVID-19 pandemic peak and also had a low case-fatality rate, according to a study published online Aug. 12 in the Archives of Disease in Childhood<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Shamez N. Ladhani, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., from Public Health England in London, and colleagues examined disease trends, testing practices, community surveillance, case-fatality, and excess deaths in children compared to adults with COVID-19 in England between January and May 2020.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that between Jan. 16, 2020, and May 3, 2020, children represented 1.1 percent of SARS-CoV-2 positive cases (1,408\/129,704). In total, 24.0 percent of the 540,305 people tested for SARS-CoV-2 were positive. In children aged <16 years, 4.0 percent of the 35,200 tests performed were positive for SARS-CoV-2 compared with 19.1 to 34.9 percent of tests among adults. From mid-March, there was an increase in childhood cases, which peaked on April 11 and then declined. Three hundred fifty-one of the 2,961 individuals presenting with acute respiratory infection in primary care were children; 2.8 percent were positive for SARS-CoV-2 compared with 9.3 to 45.5 percent in adults. The case-fatality rate was 0.3 percent for children; no evidence of excess mortality was seen among children.<\/p>\n
“Consistent with other countries, children account for a very small proportion of confirmed cases and have very low case-fatality rates,” the authors write.<\/p>\n