Texas senator suggests kids are immune to COVID-19. Here’s why experts say he’s wrong
One of the biggest mysteries surrounding the novel coronavirus is the role it plays in children.
Although the specifics are unknown, one thing is certain: Kids are not immune to SARS-CoV-2, unlike what some people, including politicians, continue to say.
Most recently, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, told NBC5 in a televised interview Thursday that “we still don’t know whether children can get [coronavirus] and transmit it to others.”
Cornyn was responding to questions regarding the reopening of schools this fall.
“I think the most important thing is safety. The schools can open, but if parents don’t feel comfortable sending their children back then they won’t go,” he told the outlet. “The good news is if you look again at the numbers, no one under the age of 20 has died of the coronavirus,” in the state of Texas.
But that’s incorrect; a 17-year-old girl died of COVID-19 in Dallas County in April, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
In a clarification Friday morning, Cornyn’s office said the senator was talking about children under 13.
But the Texas Department of State Health Services shows that as of Thursday afternoon more than 550 kids under 13 have contracted the coronavirus since the state started tracking data on age.
A spokesperson for Cornyn told McClatchy News in an email the senator’s comment “is being widely misinterpreted on social media and unfairly twisted by partisan Democrats for political gain.”
“Sen. Cornyn was not questioning whether children can catch the virus — of course they can. He was questioning the likelihood that children can catch it and THEN transmit it,” the spokesperson wrote.
So what does science tell us?
“There is a huge puzzle over the dynamics in kids and what happens with kids,” said Nick Davies, an epidemiologist and mathematical modeler at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told STAT. “We don’t really have that one great database, piece of evidence, or experiment that has really settled this question.”
Kids contract COVID-19 around the same rate as adults, study says
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “some children and infants have been sick with COVID-19, [but] adults make up most of the known cases to date.”
This is because the majority of children are asymptomatic, experts say, so testing happens less frequently.
A recent study in Chinese children showed that 90% of those who tested positive for the coronavirus had mild, moderate or no symptoms at all, according to the paper published in the journal Pediatrics.
At the same time, other research suggests children catch the virus at the same rate as adults. In a study of 391 infected individuals, about 7.4% of kids tested positive compared to 7.9% of adults, McClatchy News previously reported.
Another paper in the Lancet said children between 10 and 19 years old were equally as likely to have antibodies to the coronavirus as adults ages 20 to 49.
However, not every state or country is keeping track of case demographics, so it’s difficult to understand the true impacts COVID-19 is having on children.
Children present COVID-19 symptoms differently
Kids — on the rare occasion — develop strange reactions to coronavirus infection unseen in older individuals.
In May, more than 100 children in New York had developed a rare “coronavirus-related syndrome” related to Kawasaki disease, McClatchy News reported. Doctors in Detroit, Michigan also treated more than 20 kids for the symptoms.
This multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children makes organs such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin and eyes inflamed by limiting blood flow, and “can be serious, even deadly,” the CDC says, “but most children who were diagnosed with this condition have gotten better with medical care.”
The cause remains unknown, the agency says.
Generally, children have milder symptoms but they can develop pneumonia “with or without obvious symptoms,” Dr. Aaron Milstone, a pediatrician at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, wrote for the university. “They can also experience sore throat, excessive fatigue or diarrhea.”
“However, serious illness in children with COVID-19 is possible, and parents should stay alert if their child is diagnosed with, or shows signs of, the disease,” Milstone said.
Underlying health conditions and children
The CDC says it’s unknown if all children with underlying medical conditions such as lung disease, heart disease and others that affect the immune system are at risk of more severe symptoms.
But those that do have serious illness “need to be treated at the hospital,” the agency said.
Available statistics say most kids admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 had at least one underlying medical condition, which suggests they may be more at risk.
The latest child death in Florida — 17-year-old Carsyn Davis from Fort Meyers — had problems with obesity, asthma, a rare autoimmune disorder and a history of cancer, according to The Miami Herald.
An 11-year-old in Miami-Dade County with “multiple congenital abnormalities” also died from coronavirus-related pneumonia, the outlet reported.
This story was originally published July 10, 2020 at 11:03 AM with the headline "Texas senator suggests kids are immune to COVID-19. Here’s why experts say he’s wrong."
