Children struck by a sniffle ‘do not have coronavirus’

Victoria Ward

CHILDREN with a runny nose do not have coronavirus and should not be getting tested, an expert has warned, as demand soared by 150 per cent.

Prof Tim Spector, who developed the Covid-19 symptom tracker app, revealed that children under 18 displayed a completely different array of symptoms to adults and that if they had a cough or congestion were almost certainly suffering from the common cold that is sweeping through schools.

As the testing system buckles under the strain, Prof Spector said that parents should be aware of the symptoms specifically attributed to children before they take them out of school and tear up and down the country in search of a test.

“Kids don’t seem to lose that sense of smell and they also don’t seem to get the cough and shortness of breath as much either”, he said. “So it’s a different picture at different age groups, presumably because the immune systems are behaving differently.”

Asked whether he was suggesting that parents of children with a cough and a sniffle should not be burdening the NHS, he said: “Certainly for the next few weeks, while the whole system is stretched and this major school cold outbreak goes, I think that’s the sensible advice.”

Prof Spector’s guidance contradicts that from the Department of Health, which continues to state that if a child has a new continuous cough, a high temperature or a change or loss to their sense of taste or smell they should be tested for coronavirus. A letter circulated to all schools at the beginning of term outlined the same set of symptoms as the basis for getting a test.

Prof Spector wrote on Twitter that the Government appeared reluctant to widen the “meagre” list of symptoms in case it increased demand for testing, even though it was “inappropriate for children”.

The symptom tracker, which is used by four million people, with 300,000 children registered, has revealed that the majority of children who have tested positive for Covid-19 suffered from fatigue and a headache. Around half had a fever, while more than a third had a sore throat and a loss of appetite. One in six children had an unusual skin rash, while a third had none of the 20 potential symptoms listed on the app, suggesting that they were asymptomatic.

By comparison, almost 90 per cent of adults who have had the virus reported fatigue, nearly three quarters had a headache and around half a persistent cough and a sore throat.

Meanwhile, official government figures revealed that the number of tests booked for children aged between 10 and 14 had increased by 150 per cent in the month to Sept 1.

In the same period, the number of children aged between five and nine who were tested for coronavirus soared by 138 per cent. Tests booked for teenagers aged between 15 and 19 increased by 70 per cent and for those aged up to four by 56 per cent.

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, warned this week that people suffering from colds, as well as those who were not eligible for a test at all, were clogging up the system.

Prof Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, told Today on BBC Radio 4 that 80 per cent of people who tested positive in all age groups reported severe headaches and tiredness or fatigue in the first week of illness, suggesting that those symptoms should be prioritised.

“We have 6,500 new cases every day, which on a countrywide basis is still very small, so the chances are most people don’t have Covid-19,” he said.

“We have to realise that perhaps 98 per cent of the tests being done at the moment are actually wrong.”

He said more clarity was needed to deter people from trying to get a test. “The fatigue is not just that you need to sit down, but that you can’t get out of bed,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

He said he thought the Government was too worried about confusing the public to change the messaging but that, as a result, we had ended up with “a lot of panic and hardly any cases in some areas”.

Prof Spector said he had asked Public Health England to add skin rashes to the list of symptoms but that it was “stuck to the idea that the less things you have the easier the message is”.