.jpg?itok=nPk1dqIC&width=2048&height=1152&impolicy=semi_dynamic "Children and omikron: UMC Utrecht is investigating the spread")
An outbreak in the class of 11-year-old Iza caused a long quarantine period for the family of mother Judith van den Bulk. One by one, all the children in the family became infected. “First Iza got corona. A lot of children in her class had it,” Judith tells EditieNL. “Then the middle one, who was nine years old, got it, and finally the youngest daughter, who was seven, also got it. Fortunately, they didn’t all get really sick.”
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Judith set rules on the first infection. “Walking in the house was only allowed with a mouth cap and the person with corona had to use their own bathroom. It all did not help. We had to quarantine for a really long time.” After 22 days they came out again. During that period, Judith and her husband did not become infected.
Dissemination research
The virus therefore spread quickly in the family, although the parents were kept out of harm’s way. To gain more insight into the distribution of the omikron variant within families and the effect of vaccination, UMC Utrecht wants to conduct more research into this.
“We are looking for a hundred families,” says epidemiologist and pediatrician Patricia Bruijning. “We have chosen this because we want to take a closer look at the role of children in the spread of corona. That makes a big difference in the future, because suppose it does not spread very much via children, it would also have an effect on measures such as the school closure.”
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The research measures the complaints on a daily basis. Samples are taken to see if there is virus and how much. “Then we can see how it has spread in the family,” says Bruijning. That information can tell doctors a lot: how contagious the virus is, whether vaccination still has an effect and whether measures at home are useful. “Our previous research shows that once the virus is in the house, there is almost no escaping it. I think that is something different now, because more can be tested and there are also self-tests.”
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