Prognosis
Extensive Testing Needed to Find Kids ‘Silently Shedding’ Virus
- One in five children with SARS-CoV-2 has no symptoms: study
- Testing only symptomatic children will fail to identify cases
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Most children develop very mild SARS-CoV-2 infections that risk escaping detection unless extensive testing is done to find cases, South Korean researchers said.
The Asian country used mass testing of suspected Covid-19 cases, patient isolation and contact tracing to control the pandemic virus. Still, about 70% of children at risk of infection had symptoms that didn’t get picked up, researchers said Friday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. In fact, 93% of pediatric cases would have been missed if doctors had focused on testing symptomatic patients alone, they said.