Infants and toddlers spread COVID faster: Study

In mid-August 2021, a medical research report was published with scary new findings. Canadian researchers from the department of Public Health, Ontario had gathered and analysed data from 6,200 households, where the first person to get infected was below 18. The report has brought out a new hurdle in the race against COVID19.   

What were the report statistics? 
In one sentence: Infected babies and toddlers are more likely to spread COVID-19 to others in their homes than teens. But teens get the disease faster. After identifying the families where kids brought the pandemic home, researchers checked after 2 weeks to find that 27.3% of the children had already infected other people in the house. As the study progressed, they saw that teens accounted for 38% of these cases, in 12% cases the first one to be infected is a child aged 3 or younger, and the rest is divided between children aged 4 to 12.   

But the most frightening fact that emerged was: Risk of transmission to family members was 40% higher when the infected child was 3 or younger. 

Why are toddlers infecting more people? 
Paediatricians looking at the report suggest that very young children require a great deal of hands-on care and can't be isolated, leading to greater risk of infection in the family. This poses as double dilemma: babies need care, especially because they are sick. But when the caregiver becomes infected, the infant is neglected, and gets worse.  

What can be done to counter it?  
Paediatricians point out that parents need to get into the practice of using tissues to clean a child’s nose or mouth. Then they must throw the tissue away at once into a bin with a lid and clear trash safely and regularly. They must also wash their hands immediately after cleaning the baby’s nose or mouth. Parents also need to act with speed if they detect COVID 19 symptoms in a child, of any age range, get the kid tested, and meanwhile, start isolation for those who are above 5. The report has got doctors all over the world more worried about kids returning to school.