'More children infected with Covid, no need for panic but vaccination must'

New Delhi: More children are testing positive in the second Covid wave but the infection is mostly mild and the mortality rate low, say experts, citing increased testing and enhanced understanding of symptoms as among the possible reasons for the rising graph.

Though there is enough anecdotal evidence of COVID-19 catching children early teens and younger there is little reason to panic, said several doctors and scientists. They also stressed on the urgent need to vaccinate children to stem the spread of the infection.

There is a general increase or shift in infection numbers towards children and younger groups as compared to older people, agreed virologist Upasana Ray. This could be because the virus had already infected more of the older age groups last year, leading to the development of immunity in those who recovered from various degrees of the infection.

Eventually, this age group was prioritised for getting vaccinated as well which added to the pool of elderly individuals with immunity against this virus, Ray, from Kolkata's CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, told the news agency.

It is also important to note that possibly children with 'now known' symptoms are getting tested more and thus infections in this age group are getting reported as well, she said. This was not true last year during the first wave of the pandemic as many of the less common symptoms were not well understood at the time.

Thus, it is quite possible that children were still getting infected, remained asymptomatic or were having mild symptoms or less common symptoms which didn't progress towards alarming stages and thus remained not-tested or not-reported, Ray explained.

The senior scientist noted that the understanding of the development of this virus, the diverse symptoms, and the manner in which the infection manifests itself has improved vastly.

Thus, more people are getting tested as soon as they experience any of the known symptoms. This includes children as well, she added.

In Ray's view, in the present COVID-19 surge, the virus is infecting those to whom it has more access due to lack of immunity, that is, younger people. Children account for about 3-4 per cent of hospital admissions, in both India and the rest of the world, NitiAayog (health) member V K Paul said recently.

Though there are no exact numbers to quantify that more children are getting infected, the Karnataka COVID War Room reported 20,206 Covid infections, including 17 fatalities, among children below 10 years from March 1 to May 15 this year when the second wave hit the state.