There's a good discussion on today's episode of the Daily podcast (Feb 27). Basically the theory is that children often get the 4x regular coronavirus strains and this provides a bit of protection against the new coronavirus strain. Therefore they tend to get subacute cases of coronavirus but can still spread.
Here's an unintended consequence of closing schools though. Who often takes care of children when schools are unexpectedly closed? Grandparents. So in a way, they could be making this worse.
Kids staying at home with grandparents means far smaller groups of people though.
When my daughter started preschool... boy did she ever bring home every type of disease known to science. We ended up pulling her out and just having her grandparents look after her, which worked out really well, because I kept getting sick and missing work myself.
They can choose to not do that. Kids can't just take care of themselves on their own, they need an adult to take care of them. And seniors are a lot better about washing their hands and other things than young kids in big groups are.
Being "immune" just means your body can fight the infection effectively. It doesn't mean you don't get infected and can't spread the disease for a short amount of time.
> Basically the theory is that children often get the 4x regular coronavirus strains and this provides a bit of protection against the new coronavirus strain.
If that is true, that would seem to imply that one could improve one's resistance of COVID-19 by deliberately infecting themself with one or more non-COVID-19 coronaviruses. (Not that I suggest anyone try this.)
Also tons of kids in Japan walk, take the train or bike to school, so having kids stay home would actually cut down on a chunk of possible vectors that go back and forth to busy places like train stations and schools. If this keeps up in Japan, the Tokyo Olympics are definitely getting postponed..
Children grouping together for school is a massive transmission vector no? I don't think this is necessarily about protecting specifically kids and rather reducing transmission.
Quarantines apparently are a way to stop spreading it. Now imagine a school with 800 kids, with parents and siblings from all kinds of backgrounds. One kids with the virus can spread to a lot of people who can then do the same...
2 of the 15 new cases in Japan are children. Seems like a reasonable precaution as children have a lot more physical contact than adults (example, lice spreads in children more easily).
transmission is bad, as they might carry it to more vulnerable people, but also it gives the virus more opportunities to mutate, which could hinder vaccine/treatment progress
I think many people will view a financial struggle to ensure the square deal of old and retired as a plus to modern democracies, and the burden of providing for it a desirable burden.
So, 1% of 50 year olds is somehow supposed to be comforting? In today’s world, 50 is... not very old.
Also, not everyone gets diabetes, to take just one example. But the common cold — which this is similar to in many ways — lots of people get that.
Finally, while panic is bad — seriousness is good. And to me, I’m looking at the fact that so far most of the [critical] cases have happened in [China] where there are a lot more ventilator beds per hospital than in a place like the United States. So I think a healthy degree of caution and respect for this novel virus is more than warranted.
Would be interesting to see the normal yearly death rate of these age groups. Is Corona just advancing natural death rates for the old people (i.e. bringing forward by a few months), or do more old people die?
Is it because they might be likely to carry and spread it without ever showing any symptoms?