University of Calgary launches study to explore children’s experiences with COVID-19 and role in transmission

Researchers from the University of Calgary are launching a two-year investigation into the interplay between COVID-19 and children.

The 29-member team of scientists will study how the disease affects children’s bodies, whether they build short-term or long-term immunity after being infected and what role they play in transmitting the virus.

Dr. Jim Kellner, a professor and researcher at the university’s Cumming School of Medicine will lead the team and says he considers the task of studying COVID-19 an “important contribution” as the world copes with the pandemic. Global News’ Laurel Gregory spoke with Dr. Kellner about the scope of the study.

Laurel Gregory: What are the main questions that you hope to answer?

We are going to be able to contact and follow the clinical course of hundreds of children who had COVID-19 infections — most mild for sure. But how did those affect the children, their families, their interactions with the health-care system over time?

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: We are going to be able to contact and follow the clinical course of hundreds of children who had COVID-19 infections — most mild for sure. But how did those affect the children, their families, their interactions with the health-care system over time?

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LG: Often we think we have to protect the elderly and children but that doesn’t appear to be the case at this point.

For the most part, children have been relatively spared from the worst of it with COVID[-19] for sure.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: For the most part, children have been relatively spared from the worst of it with COVID[-19] for sure.

LG: How much does our high volume of testing play into that as well as our young population.

JK:  Hugely. We do. The territories are a bit younger, but of the provinces, we have the youngest average age population and highest birth rate, so it’s hugely important the approach to testing that we have had. In Canada, in general, testing has been good, but in Alberta in particular, we have tested at a rate far higher than almost any jurisdiction in the world. And it is not just the amount of tests but the contact tracing related to the testing, so that we have made very assertive efforts to follow up all the people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and all their contacts. And because so much of our testing has been in looking at contacts, we have identified far more children on a population basis in Alberta than any other province in Canada, and really, than anywhere in the world. Most of the studies to look at COVID-19 in children have looked at that as a percentage of the total population who have been sick with COVID-19 and typically it’s somewhere between one and five per cent.

Across all of Canada, all the testing that’s been done, about four per cent of cases are in children. However, in Alberta, almost 15 per cent of the cases that have been diagnosed have been diagnosed in children and adolescents.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: Across all of Canada, all the testing that's been done, about four per cent of cases are in children. However, in Alberta, almost 15 per cent of the cases that have been diagnosed have been diagnosed in children and adolescents.

Fortunately, most of those have been very mild cases that they don’t have to go to hospital for. But that gives you a flavour of how we have identified so many more children and this is where we have a great opportunity to discover how it’s gone for them.

LG: How long is your research project?

JK: We definitely want to aim to get some good information out soon, so we would like to get a snapshot of what we understand about immunity out in the next few months — what we know about it now. But our plan is to run the study for two years at least, and with children where we are looking at their immune reponse, measure them every six months for a couple of years and see what we know at that time. So doing all the research and getting all the analysis is going to run over a couple years.

LG: When you talk about immune response, do you mean in the way of, if you are infected and recover, are you likely to get it again?

JK: This is part of a huge global thing, a problem that has affected us like nothing in anybody’s living memory. So it’s a very big thing to try to find some useful information that can help inform public policy. And some of the things we think we can help inform policy around and thoughts around, will be things like freedom of movement in children, how assertively we can get back to opening up schools and activities that children take part in, how much do families have to worry, how much do we have to worry about young children having interactions with elderly grandparents or loved ones who have underlying disease? Do we have to work to keep them apart indefinitely? Or is there going to come a time when we don’t have to worry about that so much. So I think there are a lot of practical elements that can really inform how we deal with this.