Nearly 80 percent of coronavirus-positive children in Japan infected by family members

Oct 25, 2020 | News On Japan

Oct 25, 2020 (Japan Times) - Around 80 percent of children who tested positive for the novel coronavirus caught it from family members, the Japan Pediatric Society has found.

â€œSchool closures have proven to have only a limited effect (of protecting children from the virus),â€ the group said.

According to the societyâ€™s data collected so far this year, its member doctors reported that 472 patients age 19 or younger were found to have contracted the virus as of Oct. 8 and that 78 percent of the total were infected by their family members, such as parents and grandparents. The reported cases accounted for 7.6 percent of all under-20 cases in the country.

Even in September and October, when students were back to school in many parts of the country, the â€œcontraction-at-homeâ€ rate remained at around 80%, while the rate of virus transmission from staff at schools, kindergartens and nurseries stood low at around 10%.

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