{"id":1446,"date":"2021-06-21T08:18:44","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T12:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2021-06-21T08:18:44","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T12:18:44","slug":"is-the-alpha-variant-more-dangerous-for-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1446","title":{"rendered":"Is the Alpha variant more dangerous for children?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I hope everyone had a happy\u00a0holiday weekend–\u00a0Juneteenth, Father’s Day, and Summer Solstice!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Is the Alpha variant more dangerous for children?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Answer:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 Accumulating evidence indicates that the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7) does not result in more severe disease outcomes among children as compared with the original variant.\u00a0 Basically, because Alpha is more transmissible, children may be more likely to get infected and transmit the virus to others, but accumulating evidence indicates that infection with Alpha is no more dangerous to children than infection with the original variant.\u00a0 Note: Alpha is more dangerous for adults!\u00a0 Read on for details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that Alpha variant (B.1.1.7) is ~50% more transmissible<\/a> than the original variant.\u00a0 We also know that it is associated with more severe outcomes<\/a>\u00a0among adults.\u00a0 Previous research<\/a> indicates that B.1.1.7 infection does not result in more severe disease among children.\u00a0 These initial findings have been further corroborated by a paper published last week in BMJ<\/em>, Risk of hospital admission for patients with SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.1.7: cohort analysis<\/a>.\u00a0 Following a group of 839,278 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 between late-November 2020 and late-January 2021, the study authors identify: who was infected with Alpha vs. non-Alpha; who was admitted to the hospital; and whether hospital admissions differed\u00a0by variant type, adjusting for other background factors.\u00a0 Researchers found that risk of hospital admission* was higher if an individual was infected with Alpha– adjusted hazard ratio of hospital admission was 1.52 (95% confidence interval 1.47 to 1.57).\u00a0 They found that this risk was modified by age– people younger than 20 years old had no increased risk of hospitalization, people ages 20-29 had some increased risk, and people ages 30+ had the highest increased risk (Figure 1)<\/strong>.\u00a0 This study indicates that Alpha variant does not result in more severe outcomes among children and adolescents.\u00a0\u00a0Note: “The adjusted absolute risk of hospital admission within 14 days was 4.7% (95% confidence interval 4.6% to 4.7%) for patients with SGTF variants [Alpha] and 3.5% (3.4% to 3.5%) for those with non-SGTF variants.” \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 1. Risk of hospital admission by age and variant type <\/strong>(from BMJ<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hope everyone had a happy\u00a0holiday weekend–\u00a0Juneteenth, Father’s Day, and Summer Solstice! Question:\u00a0Is the Alpha variant more dangerous for children? Answer:\u00a0 Accumulating evidence indicates that the Alpha variant (B.1.1.7) does not result in more severe disease outcomes among children as compared with the original variant.\u00a0 Basically, because Alpha is more transmissible, children may be more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[85,40],"tags":[203,172,167],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-children","category-disease-severity","tag-alpha","tag-b-1-1-7","tag-variant","has-post-thumbnail","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1448,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/1448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}