*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on MedicalXpress.
New research adds to evidence that children infected with COVID-19 have less severe symptoms than adults with the coronavirus.
Researchers analyzed the cases of 731 children in China with laboratory test-confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 1,412 children who were suspected of having COVID-19.
Most of those 2,143 cases were mild, and only one child died. Close to 6% of the children's cases were severe or critical, compared with 18.5% of cases in adults.
The study was published online in the journal Pediatrics.
It's not clear why children with COVID-19 tend not to become as ill as adults.
"It's possible that the receptor for the virus may not be in the same configuration in children as adults. It's possible that there were just more adults who were tested because that has been the focus," said Maldonado, who was not involved with the latest study. "However, there have been other studies of pregnant women and children who did not have as severe disease.
The coronavirus "especially seems to be sparing young children," Maldonado noted.
Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-03-covid-typically-mild-kids.html