Spread of COVID at Childcare Centers Was Limited Researchers … – The Messenger

COVID-19 did not spread at childcare centers such as daycares and schools, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh found that children and staff members at local childcare centers were significantly less likely to spread the virus to others at the centers than they were elsewhere.

They say that expensive testing policies and facility closures may not have been needed.

No one wants to give up on controlling SARS-CoV-2 spread, Timothy Shope, M.D., MPH, lead author of the study and pediatrician, said in a statement. 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.

School COVID policies were among the most controversial of the pandemic. Many districts opted for school closures early in the pandemic, though children who went to schools in red states often returned to school months before their blue state peers.

These policies are believed to have contributed toward a massive learning loss and the emergence of a mental health crisis among American children. However, many felt the policies were justified because they stopped the potential spread of the virus.

Even when schools did return, many had test-to-stay policies, where students would have to routinely take a COVID test and were sent home if they were determined to have the virus.

The Pittsburgh researchers found that these policies may not have contributed much towards stopping the spread of the virus, though.

Researchers, who published their findings Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, gathered data from 83 children at 11 facilities. Using contact tracing and sequencing, they determined that 17% of infections within households of children who attended centers could be blamed on transmission at the childcare facilities. This is compared to 50% to 67% of transmission that occurred within households themselves.

This means that the children were around three-times more likely to contract the virus at home than they were at the childcare facility.

Dr. Shope says that this data shows that COVID does not need to be overly-tested for, and that facilities should not go into panic whenever a child gets ill.

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 said.

In the paper itself, the researchers write that COVID which is rarely severe or deadly among children and has lower mortality rates in youth than the flu should be treated like a normal infection.

Current testing and exclusion recommendations for [childcare centers] should be aligned with those for other respiratory viruses with similar morbidity and greater transmission to households, they write.

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Spread of COVID at Childcare Centers Was Limited Researchers ... - The Messenger