Kids At Risk Of Covid, But Won't Be ‘Main Target' Of Third Wave

Serosurveys show large number of children tested positive for the coronavirus in the first wave also, but most didn’t become sick

- Malathy Iyer

Early in the pandemic it was thought that Covid-19 does not affect children, but now many experts fear the third wave will affect children in large numbers. Monday’s news of 10,000 children and teenagers testing positive for Covid in Ahmednagar in May has only made parents more anxious. State and civic administrations are drawing up protocols for managing a rush of paediatric patients. In Mumbai, for instance, many of the field or ‘jumbo’ hospitals are in the process of setting up 250-bed child wards.

‘Kids, Adults At Equal Risk’

Paediatricians, however, are more worried about the “hype” than the actual third wave. A senior government doctor said the scare over paediatric cases rising during the third wave is the result of administrators and hospitals not “wanting to be caught napping”.

A statement put out by the Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) last week said it was “highly unlikely that the third wave will predominantly or exclusively affect children”. If there is a massive increase in the overall number of Covid-19 patients, there is a possibility that paediatric cases too would go up accordingly.