Asymptomatic Children May Carry Less Coronavirus

New questions are at the forefront as a study from (9) children's hospitals published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology on October 22, 2020, finds that most asymptomatic children who tested positive for COVID-19 had relatively low levels of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, compared to symptomatic children.

First author Larry Kociolek, M.D., pediatric infectious diseases expert at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University, stated in a press release: "At this stage, we can't predict which children are likely to carry more or less virus, because, in every age group we tested, there were some asymptomatic kids with a higher viral load."

"However, even the groups of asymptomatic kids with the highest viral load in our study still had lower viral loads than children with symptoms."