While the closures of childcare facilities are increasing across the globe, French researchers have just demonstrated that children kept in crèches do not participate in the spread of Covid-19.
- The children do not seem to have transmitted the virus between their parents and the professionals who took care of them at the crèche.
- In the two nurseries studied, there was no physical distance between children and adults.
Children kept in crèches do not participate in the spread of Covid-19, according to a new French study. After a focus on two hospital crèches in Seine-Saint-Denis, the researchers report: “The reconstruction of the viral circulation between the two populations of our study suggests that the children kept in these two crèches did not participate in spreading the virus.
Participation of children in chains of transmission
In the preamble, the scientists justified their approach: “The effectiveness of the closure of nurseries and schools on the control of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic is not known, in particular because the participation of children in the chains of transmission is not fully established.
From May 29 to July 2, 2020, a retrospective study therefore traced the circulation of the virus during the confinement period in two populations: hospital caregivers in Seine-Saint-Denis requisitioned to take care of Covid patients, and healthcare professionals. early childhood requisitioned in hospital nurseries with the children of the first. A questionnaire reconstructed the history of symptoms, contacts with suspected or proven cases of Covid and the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants. A blood sample looked for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.
“This finding is consistent”
Results: the attack rate was 11.5% in the population of hospital caregivers and 17.4% among nursery professionals. An early epidemic occurred among the staff of the Montreuil crèche, but it did not affect the parents of the children cared for over the period. In Aulnay-sous-Bois, three nursery professionals were infected, but none had cared for the child of an HIV-positive caregiver. Similarly, among the parents of children who had been entrusted to these three professionals, none developed antibodies. Twelve of the 14 infections could be linked to a probable contaminator, most often a colleague.
“Although the children were not sampled and therefore cannot be formally excluded from the chains of transmission, they do not appear to have transmitted the virus between their parents and the professionals caring for them at the crèche, and this in the absence of any measure of physical distance between them and with adults”, conclude the researchers, before adding: “This observation is consistent with the survey carried out in Finland at the end of February 2020 around a child who tested positive for SARS-CoV2, which did not reveal any secondary case, either in her school or in the sports club that she frequented, say the researchers.
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