To investigate how contact with children affects the risk of corona infection, researchers have analyzed the data of twelve million British people.
Travel, super spreaders, private households: these three factors are considered to be the main drivers of the corona pandemic *.
But what role do children play?
Do people in households with children get infected more often than people who only live with adults?
A British team of researchers investigated these questions in a large-scale study -
with reassuring results.
Rumors keep circulating that children could carry Covid-19 into families - although they show no or only very mild symptoms.
British researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Oxford have now shown in a study that this is not the case.
The evaluation of around twelve million health, hospital and death data from around twelve million Britons showed:
Depending on the age of the children, living together is not associated with an increased risk of corona infection.
In a preliminary publication, which still has to be scientifically examined, the researchers explain: “Among 9,157,814 adults under 65 years of age, living together with children up to the age of eleven was not associated with an increased risk of Sars-CoV-2 -Infection or a Covid-19-related hospital or intensive care unit admission, but with a reduced risk of corona-related death. "For people who lived with children between the ages of twelve and 18, the risk was of being infected with Covid-19, according to the researchers, increased only very slightly (1.08 percent).
The risk of a severe course of the disease or the risk of dying from Covid-19 was not higher in this group than in childless couples
.
The researchers found no connection between living together with children and the risk of corona infection in the 2,567,671 adults who were older than 65 years.
Corona infection through children?
"We did not observe any changes in the risk after schools were closed"
The study also took into account the aspect of compulsory schooling.
The study period extended from February to August 2020 - during this time the schools in England were initially still open.
From March 20, only those pupils who were entitled to emergency care were allowed to go, and later the educational institutions were finally closed completely for the summer holidays, as the portal Spektrum.de informs.
“We did not observe any changes in the risk after schools were closed,” write the British researchers in their study published on the medrxiv portal.
Overall
, living
together with children would be more beneficial to health
, the scientists add: "Living together with children of all ages was also associated with a lower risk of dying from non-Covid 19 causes".
(jg) * Merkur.de is part of the Germany-wide Ippen digital editorial network
.
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