Within Wuhan, no children tested positive between November 2019 and the second week of January, and the elderly proved particularly vulnerable. The Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in mid-February that out of 44,672 confirmed cases of COVID-19, 86.6 percent were between 30 and 79 years of age. The oldest among them were at greatest risk of death. And in a study of 1,099 patients in China, just 0.9 percent of confirmed cases were under the age of nine, while only 1.2 percent were between 10 and 19 years old.
Now, evidence is emerging that while few children suffer severely from COVID-19, they do get infected. A recent study even found evidence of viral excretion in children from rectal swabs. At the moment it doesnt seem to be causing much in the way of serious disease in young people, particularly children, says virologist Robin Shattock of Imperial College London. However, he adds, it is quite likely that children are an important source of the virus.
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