One of the enduring mysteries of the Covid-19 pandemic is that children have been spared by the virus, for the most part.
Meanwhile in adults, the researchers saw a less rapid immune response which meant the virus"was better able to invade other parts of the body where the infection was harder to control."
Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that usually cause mild to moderate upper-respiratory tract illnesses in humans but several, including Covid-19 and SARS and MERS, have emerged as global health threats. "They get lots of contact with other coronaviruses at this time so their immune system is in training anyway, and is very young and fit," he said, adding that when children's immune systems are then confronted with Covid-19, having had a lot of practice fighting off various infections and coronaviruses, they have much stronger immune response than adults who tend to get less of those kinds of infections.
The study, carried out by researchers from several British universities, studied deaths among children and young people in England from March 2020 to February 2021 — the first year of the pandemic — differentiating between those who died of Covid and those who died of an alternative cause but had coincidentally tested positive for the disease.Kids in a queue while wearing face masks during the food distribution amid Coronavirus COVID 19.
While the other six children that died appeared to have no underlying health conditions, researchers cautioned there may have been an unidentified comorbidity or undiagnosed genetic predisposition to severe disease with Covid infection.