新證據表明，年齡較大的孩子可能會像成年人一樣傳播新冠肺炎（下）

Older Kids May Transmit COVID-19 as Much as Adults Do, New Evidence Shows Part 2

新證據表明，年齡較大的孩子可能會像成年人一樣傳播新冠肺炎（下）

The results also showed up something unexpected, however. When index patients were categorised by age (0–9, 10–19, 20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60–69, 70–79, and >80 years), households with older children (index patients of 10–19 years) had the highest rate of infection spread to household contacts, with 18.6 percent of household contacts later showing the infection.

結果還展現了一些出乎意料的結果。當按年齡（0-9歲，10-19歲，20-29歲，30-39歲，40-49歲，50-59歲，60-69歲，70-79歲和> 80歲）對指示病例進行分類時，有年齡較大的孩子的家庭（即10-19歲的指示病例）向家庭接觸者傳播的感染比率最高，18.6%的家庭接觸者被感染新冠病毒。

By contrast, young children (index patients 0–9 years of age) seemed to confer the least amount of spread of the virus, with just 5.3 percent of household contacts contracting the infection, which is less than half of the 11.8 percent average of all age groups (most of whom represent adults).

相比之下，幼兒（0至9歲的指示病例）病毒傳播的情況似乎最少，只有5.3%的家庭接觸者感染了該病毒，不到全年齡段傳播的（其中大部分爲成年人）平均水平11.8%的一半。

The researchers acknowledge several limitations in their study, including asymptomatic patients that may have been missed, and data shortcomings due to testing differences between households and patients. Also, the study doesn't tell us how contacts actually got infected, as household contacts might have been exposed to the virus outside their homes.

研究人員承認他們的研究存在幾個侷限性，包括可能遺漏無症狀患者，以及由於家庭和患者之間的檢驗差異而導致的數據缺陷。此外，這項研究沒有告訴我們接觸者實際上是如何感染的，因爲家庭接觸者也可能是在家庭之外接觸到病毒的。

Nonetheless, it's a great reminder that children from birth to 18 years of age occupy very different bodies and demonstrate very different behaviours.

儘管如此，這項研究是一個很好的提醒，從出生到18歲的兒童有着非常不同的身體，會表現出非常不同的行爲。

If health and virus mitigation policies up until this point have lumped together all those individuals on the basis that they're minors, we might need to do some rethinking on that front – particularly as more information comes to hand from large-scale studies such as this.

如果到目前爲止，健康和病毒緩解政策將所有這些人都歸爲未成年人，我們可能需要在這方面進行一些反思，特別是在像這樣的大規模研究獲得了更多信息的情況下。

"I fear that there has been this sense that kids just won't get infected or don't get infected in the same way as adults and that, therefore, they're almost like a bubbled population," infectious diseases researcher Michael Osterholm from the University of Minnesota, who wasn't involved with the study, told The New York Times.

明尼蘇達大學的傳染病研究員邁克爾·奧斯特霍爾姆沒有參與這項研究，他告訴《紐約時報》：“我擔心，人們覺得孩子們不會受到感染，或者不會像成年人一樣受到感染，因此，他們幾乎就像是一個泡沫化的人羣。” 

"There will be transmission. What we have to do is accept that now and include that in our plans."

“病毒將會傳播。我們現在必須接受這一點，並將其納入我們的計劃。”

The early release findings are reported in Emerging Infectious Diseases.

提前發佈的研究結果發表在《新發傳染病》雜誌上。

翻譯：MS小冰晶