Although some children do fall seriously ill after coming down with Covid-19, the most have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Unlike other respiratory viruses such as the flu or respiratory syncytial virus, SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t hit children nearly as hard as it does adults or the elderly.
The lower risk to children has discouraged some parents from getting them vaccinated. Vaccination rates among children eligible for Covid-19 shots lag far behind those for adults.
The Herolds’ study comparing 65 young patients and 60 adults with Covid-19 in New York City found that children were less reliant on the adaptive immune system than adults, likely because they had a stronger innate response.
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They also looked at nose-and-throat swabs of 12 children and 27 adults and found that more genes involved in innate immunity were activated in the children, who also had higher levels of cytokines involved in innate immunity.
A lack of immune memory relative to adults may also give children an advantage in fighting off SARS-CoV-2, said Amy Chung, a researcher at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, Australia.
