Children and young adults between the ages of 10 and 19 can transmit the coronavirus in a household just as much as older people, according to new research in South Korea.
Researchers from the South Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who studied reports of 59,073 contacts of 5,706 COVID-19 patients also found that kids 9 and younger transmitted the virus in their households at rates that were much lower, CNN reported.
The study found that the highest COVID-19 rate at 18.6 percent for household contacts of school-age children and the lowest rates at 5.3 percent for kids younger than 9 was the middle of school closures.
“Rates were higher for contacts of children than adults,” they wrote. “These risks largely reflected transmission in the middle of mitigations and therefore might characterize transmission dynamics during school closure.”
Overall, the researchers detected the illness in 11.8 percent of 10,592 household contacts. For 48,481 non-household contacts, 1.9 percent tested positive, according to CNN.
“Although the detection rate for contacts of preschool-aged children was lower, young children may show higher attack rates when the school closure ends, contributing to community transmission of Covid-19,” they added.
The study was published in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
