Common cold may protect children from Covid-19

CHILDREN may be protected from coronavirus because they catch so many colds, scientists have suggested.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest children are just as likely to pick up the virus, but few ever develop serious disease, or even show symptoms.

Now scientists have suggested that children may be resistant because their immune systems are already well primed by the common cold – which is caused by four different types of coronavirus which circulate in the community and are largely harmless.

But while adults pick up a cold around two to four times a year, school age children catch an average of 12 colds annually, studies have shown.

Prof Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine, University of Oxford, told the House of Lords science and technology select committee that it may allow youngsters to build up some resistance that adults do not have.

“A lot of kids get seasonal coronaviruses and it’s pretty common in our population and many will have quite a strong immunity to coronaviruses generally,” he told peers.

Studies have shown that by the age of four, 70 per cent of children already have antibodies against seasonal coronavirus, which could offer important protection. “It does raise questions about what herd immunity is in this population,” added Prof Bell. “It’s a very salient point and one that will send the modellers into a tailspin.”

But Prof Bell said for most people coronavirus was not a serious illness. “The people who get severe disease and die, the vast majority are elderly people and when young people get this disease they tend not to suffer very much.”