COVID-19 infection in children and young adults higher than reported cases, B.C. study suggests
CTV
Preliminary findings from a B.C. study which set out to get a clearer picture of the number of COVID-19 infections in children and young adults has found rates around two to three times higher than the officially reported cases.
Preliminary findings from a B.C. study which set out to get a clearer picture of the number of COVID-19 infections in children and young adults has found rates around two to three times higher than the officially reported cases.
The SPRING study is being conducted by researchers at the Vaccine Evaluation Center at BC Children’s Hospital, and first began recruiting participants aged 24 and younger late last year. Center director Dr. Manish Sadarangani told CTV News Vancouver on Thursday they ended up with just over 2,500 participants.
“What we found was in those people who are under 20, around four per cent, so around one in 25 people, had evidence of antibodies in their blood, so had evidence of a previous COVID-19 infection,” he said, and added the results were pretty similar across the younger age groups: under five, five to nine, 10 to 14, and 15 to 19.
“The 20 to 24 year olds, it was a little bit higher, sort of six to seven per cent.”
Dr. Sadarangani said their data showed an infection rate among those younger age groups that was higher than the number of cases reported from COVID-19 testing.
“If we look at the data available through the Ministry of Health and through (BC Centre for Disease Control) based on the testing that gets done when people are sick with COVID-19, so that’s around two to three times higher than those numbers,” he said. “We were expecting it to be higher. We know that not everyone gets tested. We know that some people don’t have any symptoms and wouldn’t get tested.”
Those who volunteered for the study were sent a home test kit to collect a finger or heel prick blood sample, depending on the age of the participant. The blood is blotted onto a card and then sent in for analysis. All the samples for the first phase were collected before those age groups became eligible for vaccination.
