Are the Kids really safe as President Trump suggested?

Are kids safe? POLITICO

ARE THE KIDS ALRIGHT? In Thursday's coronavirus press conference at the White House, President Donald Trump suggested that science was on the side of in-person schooling this fall, because children are less likely to get sick and die from Covid-19. “They don’t catch it easily,” he said. “They don’t bring it home easily. And if they do catch it, they get better fast.”

That did appear to be one tiny blessing in March as Covid-19 sprawled across the globe. Early reports suggested kids were virtually untouched by the pandemic.

Now it’s July, and some school districts are just weeks away away from opening up classrooms. Like the president, some politicians — and parents — are arguing the risk is low for kids. Is it?

Kids still appear to be less likely to catch and transmit the virus. The leading explanation is that kids make fewer receptors, a protein called ACE2, making it more difficult for the virus to latch on, said Mark R. Schleiss, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota Medical School. As children move into adolescence and become adults, they make more of these receptors, theoretically increasing their chance of contracting the virus. The evidence for this hypothesis is limited, and would require more research.

Other theories suggest children’s smaller lungs, or even their shorter height, play a role in the likelihood of transmission, Schleiss said.

There are 317,711 reported Covid-19 cases in children and teenagers across the U.S., according to the COVKID Project, led by a team of epidemiologists who track cases in children and teens. There have been 77 reported deaths, and 805 intensive care hospitalizations in children 17 and under.

There are at least 342 cases of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in U.S. children, according to the CDC, and six reported deaths. The Covid-linked illness causes symptoms like rashes, conjunctivitis and stomach problems. While Covid primarily affects the lungs, MIS-C primarily attacks a child’s heart. Most children are developing the illness two to four weeks after being exposed to the virus. But outside of its existence, “we don’t really know what that’s about,” Schleiss said.