Association of contact to small children with a mild course of COVID-19

• Published in: International journal of infectious diseases Vol. 100; pp. 314 - 315
• Main Authors: Dugas, Martin, Schrempf, Inga-Marie, Ochs, Kevin, Frömmel, Christopher, Greulich, Leonard, Neuhaus, Philipp, Tepasse, Phil-Robin, Schmidt, Hartmut H.-J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Canada Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2020; The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Age Factors; Child; Cohort Studies; Contact Tracing; COVID-19 - immunology; COVID-19 - transmission; Critical Care; Family Health; Female; Germany; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Patient Acuity; SARS-CoV-2; Short Communication; Surveys and Questionnaires; Treatment Outcome; Young Adult; Germany
• ISSN: 1201-9712; 1878-3511
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijid.2020.09.003

•A survey of a large cohort with predominantly mild course of COVID-19 was conducted.•6.9% reported regular job-related contact with children below ten years.•23.2% reported regular contact with their own children below ten years. It is known that severe COVID-19 cases in small children are rare. If a childhood-related infection were protective against a severe course of COVID-19, it would be expected that adults with intensive and regular contact with small children also may have a mild course of COVID-19 more frequently. To test this hypothesis, a survey among 4010 recovered COVID-19 patients was conducted in Germany. 1186 complete answers were collected. 6.9% of these patients reported frequent and regular job-related contact with children below ten years of age, and 23.2% had their own small children, which was higher than expected. In the relatively small subgroup with intensive care treatment (n = 19), patients without contact with small children were overrepresented. These findings are not well explained by age, gender, or BMI distribution of those patients and should be validated in other settings.