Expat Parents in Spain’s Costa del Sol and Costa Blanca relieved to hear children are unlikely spread the virus

Expat Parents in Spain may not have to worry about their children catching the coronavirus when they are allowed out in the next few weeks after new research suggests they are not ‘super spreaders.’

With the Spanish government days away from allowing children to be allowed out in ‘controlled phases’ expat parents have expressed worries of them catching the coronavirus from the other children.

Children have for years been considered ‘super-spreaders’ of common winter bugs and the flu, but doctors say the same may not apply for coronavirus, according to research that suggests they are not major spreaders of the disease. One example is that of an infected nine-year-old boy in France who did not pass the vicious virus on to anyone despite being in contact with 172 people while contagious. He and 10 others were struck down while staying in a ski chalet in the French Alps as was Steve Walsh, one of the first Britons known to have the virus.

Children from three different ski schools in eastern France while unknowingly infected, and mingled with other people. All of those were placed in quarantine when the child tested positive, but only one other child contracted Covid-19. Neither of his siblings was struck down. Doctors suggested the boy was not the spreader of the virus to the one other case because he came into contact with so many people. Researchers who studied the child’s case said it suggests children are not a primary concern when considering the viruses’ main routes of transmission.

This would mean it’s in stark contrast to other viruses like the common cold, which normally spreads rapidly among children. This is because youngsters often have poor hygiene and come into contact with lots of other youngsters, who have similar habits. Doctors have emphasised under 18’s are just as at risk as any other age for picking up the virus – but unlikely to show severe symptoms. The unnamed French boy was at the centre of a cluster of cases that made international headlines in February.

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Tony Winterburn

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