COVID-19: New variant could more easily infect children, scientist suggests
Written by News on 22/12/2020
The new strain of COVID-19 could more easily infect children, says a member of the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats advisory group (NervTag).
The coronavirus variant – named VUI-202012/01– was revealed to be in circulation last week by Health Secretary Matt Hancock and is said to be behind the recent surge in infections, including in London and much of southeast England.
Its emergence led to Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the weekend cancelling this Christmas for millions of people, who are now living under the toughest Tier 4 restrictions, and has prompted dozens of countries to axe flights from the UK amid fears about it spreading.
Speaking at a Nervtag Q&A, Professor Neil Ferguson said: “There is a hint that it has a higher propensity to infect children… but we haven’t established any sort of causality on that, but we can see that in the data.”
He added: “What we’ve seen over the course of a five or six-week period is consistently the proportion of pillar two cases for the variant in under-15s was statistically significantly higher than the non-variant virus.”
He did warn, though, that more data would be needed to draw a conclusion.
Another speaker, Professor Wendy Barclay, told the Q&A that caution should be exercised when looking at the impact of the new variant on children.
“We are not saying that this is a virus which specifically attacks children,” she said.
“We know that SARS-CoV-2, as it emerged as a virus, was not as efficient in infecting children as it was adults, and there are many hypotheses about that.
“And again, if the (new) virus is having an easier time of finding an entrance cell then that would put children on a more level playing field.”
She added: “Therefore children are equally susceptible perhaps to this virus as adults, and therefore given their mixing patterns, you would expect to see more children being infected.
“It’s not just the viruses specifically targeting them, but it’s just that it’s now less inhibited, if you like, to get into the children.”
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Prof Ferguson went on to say that “there was strong evidence the new mutant strain is 50% more transmissible than the previous virus”.
Speaking earlier about the new variant, Professor Andrew Hayward of Nervtag told Sky News: “This is really terrible news in terms of the pandemic.
“If the vaccine is the best news, this is the worst news we’ve had so far, and we really, really need to tighten down the hatches to stop the spread of this strain while vaccinating as many people as possible.”
(c) Sky News 2020: COVID-19: New variant could more easily infect children, scientist suggests
