According to specialists, the daily increase in COVID–19 numbers is not caused for concern, and India’s focus should be on protecting individuals who may have serious consequences as a result of the illness.
“Vulnerable and high-risk populations must be safeguarded. The youngsters are the ones who are least likely to have negative results. In light of this, schools should continue to operate at full capacity for offline lessons,” said Chandrakant Lahariya, a public health specialist.
“They are not an exception” when it comes to children contracting a COVID infection or being more susceptible, he said. “The risk of developing the serious disease for healthy youngsters following SARS–CoV–2 infection is quite minimal,” he stated.
Children are just as susceptible to COVID
“Children are just as susceptible to COVID as adults,” said Dr. Suresh Kumar Panuganti, lead consultant — Pediatric Critical Care and Pediatric, Yashoda Hospitals, Hyderabad, of this cohort, which is now being followed more closely with all educational institutions open and their numbers – testing positive – slowly rising.
“Kids of all ages offer varied problems due to changes in physiology and exposure, making them a unique subset of the population that requires additional care,” Dr. Panuganti explained.
He claims that school-aged children are more likely to be exposed to various diseases due to their close closeness to a group of youngsters, particularly if one of them is sick. According to him, youngsters have less severe symptoms than adults, although the exact causes behind this remain unknown.
Doctors confirm that non–vaccinated folks are the ones who get the most infection. “Yes, we are seeing more children with infection as a result of this rise.” Fever, sore throat, and runny stool are the most common flu symptoms. Immunocompromised patients, patients with several co-morbidities, and patients at risk for COVID, such as health care employees, are all susceptible to reinfection,” stated Dr. Bhumesh Tyagi, senior consultant, Internal Medicine, Sharda Hospital, Greater Noida.
Ambarish Dutta, an additional professor, of Epidemiology, the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), cautioned against assigning any specific trends in assigning that there are more cases among children, saying there is “no evidence to suggest that more children are getting infected in this surge specifically.” The proportion of youngsters infected has stayed more or less the same in prior surges, according to periodic age-wise analysis.”
“The present surge’s data must be disaggregated by age group and examined for any such signal.” However, because schools are now open, it appears that more children are becoming affected.”
Despite the fact that the daily tally has increased slightly, Dr. Sachin Kandhari, senior neurosurgeon at IBS Hospital in Delhi, stressed the importance of following precautionary measures, particularly for individuals who are highly sensitive. “Though the vaccine push has protected many people, adhering to social distancing standards, such as wearing masks and avoiding crowded settings, will help protect you from infection.”