Children Don’t Panic! Here’s All You Need to Know About Coronavirus

Varun Thakur
RUBEX Blog
Published in
5 min readMar 25, 2020

The new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which results in the infection COVID-19, has caused thousands of deaths so far.

Coronavirus is a disease that is predicted to spread throughout the globe. Don’t think it’s going to happen to you as thinking more about it in-depth will make things worse. As a college-going student, I was much relieved knowing that there are no documented cases of children having coronavirus infections. It has been researched that flu is more dangerous than coronavirus in children. It is because thousands of children die every year from the flu, while only a handful of children are diagnosed by coronavirus infection. A recent WHO study states that due to the healthy immune system of children, they are not affected by coronavirus disease, and it doesn’t spread in them. But don’t presume that it won’t expand afterwards. This is just the beginning of a worldwide epidemic. Regular checkups are no harm if you have a fever or cough for too many days.

Things children should keep in mind:-

  • Some of the schools have been closed, but this shouldn’t be considered as a holiday to go out again and have physical contact with newer people, but its motto is to reduce the direct human contact and with the surroundings as well.
  • I would personally suggest staying away from people sneezing in the open and then saying excuse me. So from the next time, think before going to the movie and ask yourself if you can face these many physical contacts.
  • Avoid group studying, any way you can score better in exams studying alone.
  • Try to reduce borrowing books from friends just to talk with them, purchase your own.
  • Causes shouldn’t be discussed here as it’s highly inappropriate for children to know about it, but as far as it goes, it leads to death.

Parents are understandably concerned. But it’s essential to keep in mind that comparatively few children have tested positive for the virus, and deaths in children are infrequent.

Before taking any of these precautions, you should know what is it and why is it that Chinese are suggesting a way for Indians to reduce the population?

What is the new Coronavirus (COVID-19)?

COVID-19 is affected by a new problem of a family of viruses found out in the 1960s. Coronaviruses get their phrase from a unique corona or “crown” of sugary proteins enclosing the virus when discerned under a powerful microscope.

Coronaviruses circulate in humans, usually causing a mild sickness with runny nose and cough. Coronaviruses are also often found in animals with assumption COVID-19 that arose from animals, most probable bats.

Three novel coronaviruses have occurred this century.

In 2002–03, SARS-CoV (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus) arose in China dissipating to North America, Europe and South America. More than eight thousand cases were observed, and approximately 10 percent of those infected died.

MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus), arose from camels in Saudi Arabia in 2012. A vast outburst emerged in South Korea in 2015. Almost 2500 cases have been documented, and 34 percent of those infected died.

SARs-CoV and MERS-CoV infection in kids is less commonly reported than would be predicted. For instance, 3.4 percent of outbreaks of MERS coronavirus in Saudi Arabia were in kids, where over 15 percent of the population is under 19 years of age.

An identical pattern was seen in SARS, where the percentage of reported infection in kids under 14 years of age was vastly lower than in aged groups.

COVID-19 was initially observed in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and has already resulted in more deaths than SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV together.

Statistics about Coronavirus in Kids

The amount of documented COVID-19 cases in children stays low: of more than 44,000 verified cases from China, only 416 (less than 1 percent) were aged nine years or younger. No deaths were noted in this age group.

In Australia, only one kid has so far had ascertained COVID-19 infection.

It stays unspecific whether the low numbers of child infections documented is due to:

  • Small amounts of children being exposed to the virus
  • small amounts of children being infected, or
  • small quantities of infected kids formulating symptoms severe enough to present for attention.

If large amounts of children are not getting sick, why does it matter?

If children are infected, however, have milder indications, they may yet play a critical part in COVID-19 transmission. Children are mobile, alleviate vast amounts of virus, assemble in groups and are at lower threat of acute infection so often maintain their everyday activities.

Prohibiting school-age children from getting infected with influenza is an active community prevention society. In the lack of a COVID-19 vaccine, school closures may be required to be assessed when looking at the manners to reduce community spread, if children establish to be crucial transmitters of infection.

Symptoms of Coronavirus in Children

Chinese doctors documented infected children often have a cough, runny nose, nasal congestion, diarrhea and a headache. Less than half of children have an illness. Many have no indications.

The majority of adolescents and children with COVID-19 in China had mild infections and healed within one or two weeks.

Even newborns, who are traditionally more sensitive to severe respiratory infections, had relatively mild infections.

How does a person tell if it’s COVID-19?

Most children with COVID-19 present with respiratory indications or a cough, which is different from other ordinary viruses, comprising influenza and rhinovirus.

But so far, all youngsters with actual COVID-19 have had family members or close contacts with confirmed virus.

In the first part of an Australian epidemic, verifying COVID-19 infections will be crucial to guide our public health response. Still, if COVID-19 cases resume to arise, this testing strategy may shift to only test patients who are hospitalized as the sole benefit of confirming COVID-19 infection will be to inform medication and infection control practices in hospitalized patients.

At this phase, it’s not clear if therapies are helpful in the treatment of COVID-19. Several older drugs, such as lopinavir utilized to deal with HIV, have been used to deal with some severe cases but need to be formally analyzed. Clinical trials have been reported, and some results from Chinese experimenters are required soon.

Nonetheless, as children have exceptionally mild symptoms, it would be challenging to justify disclosing them to possible side effects of antiviral medicines, such as vomiting, nausea and allergic reactions, for little help.

To conclude, I must say, much of the future of this epidemic is not in the hands of the virus but is in the hands of ourselves.

Published on behalf of RUBEX, an ed-tech initiative that offers live classes on-demand. You can take our subjective tests to check your preparation level, clear doubts live with our subject matter experts or even request for a counseling session. Visit www.rubex.in.

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