A study published in the JAMA Network Open found that children are more likely to spread COVID-19 among household contacts than at child care centers.
The study assessed 83 children across 11 child care centers and their household contacts (118 adults and 16 children) throughout the course of a year.
The patients had weekly COVID-19 tests and kept symptom diaries.
“Children younger than 5 years comprised a higher proportion of COVID-19 cases in the US in late 2021 and early 2022 than earlier in the pandemic,” the study says. “Children in group child care and schools can transmit many infectious diseases, particularly influenza, to household contacts and the community at large.”
Despite the notion that children are more likely to transmit viruses through group care settings or schools, the study found that COVID-19 rates at child care centers were only 2.7%-3%.
In households, however, transmission rates rose to 50% among children and 67% among adults.
The findings suggest that neither children nor caregivers are primary vectors of COVID-19 transmission.
According to the authors of the study, “current testing and exclusion recommendations for SARS-CoV-2 in [childcare centers] should be aligned with those for other respiratory viruses with similar morbidity and greater transmission to households.”
“It is interesting that such a contagious virus was transmitted at low rates in child care centers and was an uncommon reason for household infections,” said Dr. Timothy Shope, the lead author of the study.
“We need to have an open discussion at the national level about the benefit of recommending SARS-CoV-2 testing for every child with respiratory symptoms who attends a child care program,” he noted. “No one wants to give up on controlling SARS-CoV-2 spread, but focusing on testing and long exclusion periods for children in child care centers appears to be unnecessary, while subjecting families to the expense of frequent testing, absence from work and lost wages, and loss of education and socialization for children.”
