Kids less likely to get COVID-19, new study confirms

The province’s health officer says worldwide studies continue to show children are at low risk to contract COVID -19 or to spread it.

Dr. Bonnie Henry said a report released by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine over the weekend found that children had fewer ACE2 receptors on cells in the nose, throat, lungs and gut. The coronavirus enters the body by attaching to these ACE2 receptors.

“Children seemed to have fewer of those,” Henry said on Monday. “That may have something to do with why it seems less likely that children get infected.

“The evidence really does continue to show that children are less likely to transmit (coronavirus) between each other and to adults and they are less likely to be infected and to have severe illness.”

Henry said that 27 of B.C.’s 2,530 confirmed cases of COVID -19 were in children under 10, and none of them had been hospitalized.

She said there were 52 cases among those ages 10-19 and three of those had ended up in hospital but none in intensive care.

There were 12 new cases of COVID-19 reported in B.C. between noon Saturday and noon Monday and four deaths.

Those deaths were among residents of the Langley Lodge longterm care home, bringing the toll there to 20. Most of the 161 COVID-19 deaths in B.C. have been among the elderly with other health conditions.

Henry said there were 267 active cases of COVID -19 in B.C., with 37 in hospital, including seven in intensive care. The number of active cases and hospitalizations continues to drop.