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Pediatrics

It’s Time to Put Children and Young People First During the Global COVID-19 Pandemic

Educational Objective
To understand the importance of researching the role children and young people play in spreading COVID-19

1 Credit CME

JAMA Pediatrics

Published Online: September 25, 2020

Editorial

Article Information and Disclosures

Saul N. Faust, MD, PhD¹;

Alasdair P. S. Munro, MD¹

Author Affiliations

¹National Institute of Health Research Southampton Clinical Research Facility and Biomedical Research Centre, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom

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Children have been relatively spared from the effect of clinical coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The newly described inflammatory syndrome¹^,2 is rare in terms of the total population of children, and severe acute forms of COVID-19 are even rarer in children and young people.³ Despite this, both experts and the public have struggled to come to terms with the fact that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is also different from all other known respiratory viral infections: there is significant uncertainty regarding children and young people’s ability to catch, transmit, and spread the virus. With no immediate vaccine or cure available, the only effective public health response has been widespread lockdown, including school closures now approaching more than half of the calendar year at considerable detriment to the long-term education and mental health of an entire generation.⁴^,5 With the start of the academic year in northern hemisphere countries, there is an urgent need to understand children’s role in transmitting SARS-CoV-2.

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Article Information

Corresponding Author: Saul N. Faust, MD, PhD, National Institute of Health Research Southampton Clinical Research Facility, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Tremona Road, Southampton SO16 6YD, United Kingdom (s.faust@soton.ac.uk).

Published Online: September 25, 2020. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.4582

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Faust reports personal fees or grants for contract commercial clinical trials were paid to his institution (with no personal payment of any kind) from AstraZeneca/MedImmune, Sanofi, Pfizer, Seqirus, Sandoz, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, and Johnson & Johnson outside the submitted work. Drs Faust and Munro are funded in part by the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Southampton Clinical Research Facility; Dr Faust is an NIHR senior investigator.

References

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AMA CME Accreditation Information

Credit Designation Statement: The American Medical Association designates this Journal-based CME activity activity for a maximum of 1.00  AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to:

1.00 Medical Knowledge MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program;;
1.00 Self-Assessment points in the American Board of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery’s (ABOHNS) Continuing Certification program;
1.00 MOC points in the American Board of Pediatrics’ (ABP) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program;
1.00 Lifelong Learning points in the American Board of Pathology’s (ABPath) Continuing Certification program; and
1.00 CME points in the American Board of Surgery’s (ABS) Continuing Certification program

It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting MOC credit.