A Look at DESE's Cited Source: Footnote #72 - The Role of Children in the Dynamics of Intra Family Coronavirus 2019 Spread in Densely Populated Area

DESE Claim: "A study in Israel found that children 5-17 were 61% less likely to have positive COVID-19 tests compared with adults in the same household."

Cited Source: Somekh, E., Gleyzer, A., Heller, E., Lopian, M., Kashani-Ligumski, L., Czeiger, S., ... & Stein, M. (2020). The Role of Children in the Dynamics of Intra Family Coronavirus 2019 Spread in Densely Populated Area. The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal. Available at https://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/9000/The_Role_of_Children_in_the_Dynamics_of_Intra.96128.aspx

Peer Reviewed?: unclear (DESE linked source is not published article)

Study Methodology: "Clusters of infections within families living in Bnei Brak were identified and investigated."

Notes: There were 13 family clusters investigated. "Children 5–17 years of age were about 61% and children 0–4 years were 47% less likely to have positive PCR results compared with adults older than 18 years of age residing in the same household." Notably, Bnei Brak has a very high population of young people. "Our results do not necessarily indicate that reopening school is safe regarding the potential of re-emergence of Covid-19 spread since various rates of transmission are expected to occur also in school (as occurred in a family set up) and therefore reopening school should be practiced with caution and with close monitoring of Covid-19 spread." (emphasis is my addition). 

Supports DESE Claim?: Yes (but the fact that DESE doesn't account for the author's statement that results don't mean school is safe is alarming) 

A Look at DESE's Cited Sources: Footnote #70 - New York State Coronavirus 2019 Response Team, COVID-19 Testing, Epidemic Features, Hospital Outcomes, and Household Prevalence, New York State—March 2020

DESE Claim: "In NYC, in households with at least one COVID-19 case, prevalence of infection for children 5-≤18 was 31.9% vs. overall prevalence 52.5%."

Cited Source: Eli S Rosenberg, Elizabeth M Dufort, Debra S Blog, …, New York State Coronavirus 2019 Response Team, COVID-19 Testing, Epidemic Features, Hospital Outcomes, and Household Prevalence, New York State—March 2020, Clinical Infectious Diseases, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa549

Peer Reviewed?: unclear - "accepted manuscript"

Study Methodology: "epidemiological investigations and hospital record-linkage"

Notes: This is a study of household infection, not overall infection rates. It looks at infections of people in New York State outside of New York City. A total of 138 children ages 5 to <18  with a household member who had COVID-19 were tested, and 44 tested positive. 

Supports DESE Claim?: No - this is not a New York City study. The data is from New York State excluding NYC.

A Look at DESE's Cited Sources: Footnote #69 - Age specificity of cases and attack rate of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

DESE Claim: "In one study from Japan, 7.2% of exposed male children ages 0-19 and 3.8% of exposed female children tested positive for COVID-19, compared to 22.2% of exposed males ages 20-59 and 21.9% of exposed females ages 20-59"

Cited Source: Mizumoto, K., Omori, R., & Nishiura, H. Age specificity of cases and attack rate of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). medRxiv 2020. Available at https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033142v1

Peer Reviewed?: No - pre print letter to the editor

Study Methodology: Analysis of public health data

Notes: The study examined domestically acquired cases of COVID-19 in Japan. "What our short analysis shows is that children are less likely to be diagnosed as cases, and moreover, the risk of disease given exposure among children appears to be low." 

Supports DESE Claim?: Yes.

A Look at DESE's Cited Sources: Footnote #68 and #74 - Household secondary attack rate of COVID-19 and associated determinants

DESE Claim 1 (footnote #68): "In another study from China, exposed children less than 19 years of age became infected at a rate of 5.3%, vs. 13.7% for 20-59 and 17.7% for 60+."

DESE Claim 2 (footnote #74): "In a study from China, only 5% of household clusters were found to have a child <20 as the index patient"

Cited Source: Jing, Q. L., Liu, M. J., Yuan, J., Zhang, Z. B., Zhang, A. R., Dean, N. E., ... & Lu, Y. (2020). Household secondary attack rate of COVID-19 and associated determinants. medRxiv. Available at https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.11.20056010v1

Peer Reviewed?: No - preprint

Study Methodology: " Based on a comprehensive contact-tracing dataset from Guangzhou, we estimated

both the population-level effective reproductive number and individual-level secondary attack

rate (SAR) in the household setting."

Notes: This study studies transmission in the household setting. "Case finding and isolation alone may be inadequate to contain the pandemic and need to be used in conjunction with heightened restriction of human movement as implemented in Guangzhou." There were fewer household secondary cases in young people.

Supports DESE Claim 1?: Yes, for household exposed children.

Supports DESE Claim 2?: Yes

A Look at DESE's Cited Sources: Footnote #64 - Suppression of COVID-19 outbreak in the municipality of Vo, Italy

DESE Claim: "After an outbreak in Italy, no children under 10 were infected and children 11-20 were infected at half the overall rate."

Cited Source: Lavezzo, E., Franchin, E., Ciavarella, C., Cuomo-Dannenburg, G., Barzon, L., Del Vecchio, C., ... & Abate, D. (2020). Suppression of COVID-19 outbreak in the municipality of Vo, Italy. medRxiv. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20053157v1

Peer Reviewed: No - preprint

Study Methodology: "We collected information on the demography, clinical presentation, hospitalization, contact network and presence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in nasopharyngeal swabs"

Notes: The municipality was locked down upon the first death from COVID-19. A large percentage of the population was tested for SARS-CoV-2. 73 cases (out of 2,812 subjects) were found. Of those, none were kids under 10. The positive rate for people 11-20 was 1.2%, compared to an overall infection rate of 2.6%.

Supports DESE Claim?: Yes. In this particular outbreak, there were not any infected children under 10, and a lower infection rate in people 11-20.

A Look at DESE's Cited Sources: Footnote #63 - Coronavirus Disease-19: The First 7,755 Cases in the Republic of Korea

DESE Claim: "In a South Korea study, children under 20 only accounted for 6.2% of all positive cases."

Cited Source: Coronavirus Disease-19: The First 7,755 Cases in the Republic of Korea. Osong Public Health Res Perspect. 2020;11(2):85-90. Published online April 30, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24171/j.phrp.2020.11.2.05

Peer Reviewed?: unclear

Study Methodology: Epidemiological investigation of public health data

Notes: This is a summary of the demographic characteristics of the cases in Korea. 

Supports DESE Claim?: Yes

A Look at DESE's Cited Sources: Footnote #56 - Massachusetts Child and Youth Serving Programs Reopen Approach: Minimum Requirements for Health and Safety

DESE Claim: "This list focuses on establishing processes and communication structures; future guidance will have more details about concrete operational planning."

Cited Source: For example, see: Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care, Massachusetts Child and Youth Serving Programs Reopen Approach: Minimum Requirements for Health and Safety (pg. 6-8) https://eeclead.force.com/resource/1592325278000/Min_Req

Peer Reviewed?: no - government document

Study Methodology: N/A - policy document

Notes: The cited "example" source is a Massachusetts Early Education and Care reopening document. It includes much more specific detail than the DESE document. 

Supports DESE Claim?: N/A - cited source is an exemplar