How COVID-19 affects children key to slowing pandemic

Editor's Note

This commentary by Andrea Cruz, MD, MPH, pediatric emergency medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and Steven Zeichner, MD, PhD, head of pediatric infectious diseases University of Virginia Health, Charlottesville, who are associate editors for Pediatrics, notes that it is crucial to understand how the COVID-19 virus affects children in order to model the pandemic accurately.

There are subgroups of children who appear to be at greater risk of COVID-19 complications, particularly those who are younger, immunocompromised, or have pulmonary health problems.

The authors caution that even asymptomatic children could play a major role in disease transmission. For example, one study found that the virus remained in children’s stool for several weeks after diagnosis.

Because many children infected with COVID-19 have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, it is important to practice the social distancing, hygiene, and other precautions recommended by public health authorities to minimize transmission, the authors say.