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[quote=Anonymous]https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/delta-variant-kids-parents-emily-oster.html

The delta variant is more contagious; exactly how much is unclear, but it seems in the range of 60 percent to 100 percent more (100 percent more contagious = twice as contagious). This means that if an interaction with an infected person had a 10 percent chance of leading to infection with the original COVID-19, that same interaction has a 16 percent to 20 percent chance now.
This means that everyone—kids and adults—is more likely to be infected from a given interaction with an infected person. However, the data does not suggest a relatively greater degree of infectiousness for kids. That is, it doesn’t look like children’s increase in susceptibility with this variant is more than adults’. And remember, kids were not very susceptible to past variants of the coronavirus—which means even a doubly infectious virus does not leave them terribly vulnerable.
The best data we have on this is from the U.K., where frequent sequencing and the dominance of the delta variant for the past several months make it possible to look at the age patterns of infection. Just as in earlier phases of the pandemic, rates in younger children remain extremely low. (The most dramatic rise in infection rates over the past month is in people 16 to 24, a group that in the U.S. has been eligible for vaccination for several months, though even they are also still seeing a low percentage of positive tests, still under 1 percent.)
The group aged 2 to 11 is perhaps the most relevant here, in terms of parenting decisions, and the rates are low and flat even though there has been unmasked in-person school during this period. This should be reassuring.

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Is infection more serious?

Serious infection or death from COVID-19 in kids is extremely rare. We know this, and it continues to be reinforced with data. Just this week, several studies out of the U.K. showed extremely low child death rates. Of almost half a million infections, there were 25 deaths, 15 of which were in children with serious underlying conditions. Any death is tragic, and death is not the only thing we are worried about, but this reinforces the conclusion that children are extremely low risk.

Turning to delta: There is disagreement about whether the delta variant leads to more severe disease in general. Some people have suggested it does, based on one study out of Scotland. Others have noted that there’s just not much data elsewhere backing up the idea that it leads to serious disease. However, this is generally a challenging question.

When it comes to kids, though, the data doesn’t point to anything that would look like alarming increases in hospitalization rates in recent weeks. Broadly, both cases and hospitalization rates have been declining in children in the U.S. over 2021. Delta has not been dominant here in this period, but the U.K. data also does not show significant hospitalization spikes over the past few weeks, either.
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