(ANSA) – ROME, AUGUST 12 – In families where there are children, the risk of getting sick with Covid is about 10% higher than in families made up of adults only. This is what emerges from a study conducted by researchers from the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, Denmark, published in Eurosurveillance, a journal of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (Ecdc).
The research started from a thesis that has circulated a lot in the last two years: that living with children, subject to frequent infections with coronaviruses that cause the common cold, can have some protective effect on adults. In fact, the research has come to opposite conclusions.
The analysis of the infections that occurred among 450 thousand adults residing with children and over 2.6 million who lived without children at home showed that the chances of infection are slightly higher among the former, with an average increase of 10% in the risk of infections. . The risk of getting sick increases as the number of children in the house increases: it is + 8% with a minor, + 16% with two, + 38% with three or more. The probabilities of contagion further increase as the age of minors increases, up to almost + 65% in homes where there are at least three minors approaching the age of majority.
The study found no increase in the risk of hospitalization in families with children.
“Our study suggests that living with young children, and therefore being frequently exposed to human coronaviruses, does not offer substantial protection against SarsCoV2 infection, but, on the contrary, slightly increases the risk of infection in adults.” (HANDLE).
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