According to a study by an international research team, Corona could develop into a childhood disease. This could be good news.
A joint working group from the University of Oslo in Norway and the Pennsylvania State University in the USA has published a study. The research states that the disease burden of the coronavirus will shift primarily to children in the next few years.
If the researchers who published their work in the scientific journal “Science Advances” were to be correct in their assumption, this would mean a noticeable easing of the situation. Because such a shift to children would mean, according to the Internet specialist magazine “heilpraxis.net”, that the overall burden of Corona would decrease. This is due to the fact that the severity of a disease with the coronavirus is significantly lower in children.
In such a case, there could be a development away from a pandemic to an endemic. Endemic is a rapidly spreading contagious infectious disease that, unlike a pandemic, is limited to smaller areas. In contrast to a pandemic, an endemic is also not limited in time, but rather permanent. Examples of an endemic epidemic include cholera and malaria, which have spread permanently, especially in Africa.
A coronavirus wave rolled in between 1889 and 1890
Ottar Bjornstad from the University of Oslo reported that there were clear signs of an increasing severity with age related to the coronavirus. However, the modeling results revealed by the research team suggest that the risk of infection is likely to shift to younger children as “the adult population becomes immune to either vaccination or exposure to the virus”.
This would correspond to observations that have already been made with other viruses from the Corona or Influenza family. These too initially led to violent waves of infection, but later became endemic. Historical records of respiratory disease would show that patterns of age incidence in new epidemics could be very different from endemic distribution, Bjornstad said.
As an example, the researchers cite the pandemic known as the Asian or Russian flu in 1889 and 1890. In this case, too, it was a coronavirus, which is now known as HcoV-OC43. Around a million adults lost their lives due to infection with this disease, and mortality was particularly high when they were over 70 years old. Today the virus is still endemic and affects children between the ages of seven and 12 months in particular.
Infection with the coronavirus in early childhood could significantly reduce future infections
An early childhood infection with the currently rampant COVID-19 coronavirus would have the advantage that various studies come to the conclusion that the severity of the disease decreases with each further infection with the virus. Although the immunity declines after an initial illness after some time, however, in the case of an endemic development, severe disease courses would occur significantly less often.
| Institute | University of Oslo | Pennsylvania State University |
| Students | Around 30,500 | Around 86,000 |
| location | Oslo, Norway | Pennsylvania, USA |
| founding | 1811 | 1855 |
| Sponsorship | State | State |
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Nonetheless, research shows that vaccination offers greater protection than exposure to the virus, Bjornstad said. The scientist therefore continues to recommend getting vaccinated “as soon as possible”. The basis of the research results is a “realistic age-structured mathematical model” (RAS), which takes into account the degree of social mix as well as the demographics and duration of immunity. This makes it possible to examine possible future scenarios with regard to the age incidence and mortality as a result of an infection with the coronavirus.
Overall, the Norwegian-American joint venture carried out forecasts for one year, ten years and 20 years, taking into account the circumstances in a total of eleven countries, including China, the USA, Japan, Brazil, France and Germany. According to Ruiyun Li, who, like Bjornstad, conducts research at the University of Oslo, such a model framework enables robust predictions of age-related risk in view of short- or long-term protective immunity, the reduction in the severity of the disease with previous exposure and the consideration of different countries with their different demographic conditions .
The basis of the study is that a second infection with corona is milder
For many infectious respiratory diseases, the prevalence in the population skyrockets during a recent epidemic, but then declines in a decreasing wave pattern as the spread of the infection evolves into an endemic equilibrium over time, Li said.
However, it is fundamental for the informative value of the model that reinfections actually only cause mild illnesses, added Professor Jessica Metcalf from Princeton University in the US state of New Jersey. However, if a first-time infection does not prevent or at least mitigate a further infection, the mortality rate could remain unchanged over time. In such a case, “excessive mortality from persistent severe reinfection” would continue until “more effective pharmaceutical agents” were available. (Mirko Schmid)
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