Incidence of Covid-19 in School Children

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is causing a global pandemic with high morbidity and mortality among adults and mainly the elderly. Children seem to be little or not affected by this infection. It is estimated that children could be asymptomatic or pauci-symptomatic carriers and thus be vectors of the disease. However, the role of the children in the spread of COVID-19 injection remains unclear. Measures to close schools and to confine populations have been decreed in a large number of countries, including France. This decision has been based on epidemiologic data of other viral infections having droplet transmission and on data of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV) asymptomatic portage. Furthermore, there are only a few data on the prevalence of COVID19 disease in children. The deconfinement strategy depends on data on the prevalence of the disease, especially in children. Therefore, investigators propose to evaluate the incidence of Covid-19 in preschool and elementary schools children in the city of Nice (South of France) during the pandemic period using a local prospective study of 914 children. This study will start on 11th May 2020, date of school reopening, in order to collect epidemiologic data about Covid-19 carriage among schoolers and to support governmental strategy for the new school year in September 2020.