This archive report was first published on 16 June 2020.
Published on June 16, 2020, a new study has revealed that people under the age of 20 are half as likely to contract Covid-19 than the rest of the population.
According to the research, which was published in the Nature Medicine Journal, four out of five infected young people show no symptoms.
Experts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine developed age-based COVID-19 transmission models based on data from six countries, including China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Canada, and South Korea.
The team estimated that under-20s are at half the risk of Covid-19 infection than over-20s, and found a wide variation in symptomatic cases linked to age, with only 21 percent of those aged 10 to 19 likely to show symptoms compared with 69 percent of over-70s.
The researchers simulated Covid-19 outbreaks in 146 capital cities around the world to see what effect school closures had on the spread of the disease, and found that unlike with influenza outbreaks, the measure had little effect on stopping the novel coronavirus spreading.
Study co-author Rosalind Eggo said, "Whether to reopen schools or not is a complicated question. We've provided some evidence showing an indication of decreased (Covid-19) susceptibility in children."
