Compared to adults, children with the coronavirus are less likely to be hospitalized or show symptoms like a fever, cough or shortness of breath, new U.S. data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

Why it matters: Those with less serious illness or who are asymptomatic likely play a large role in transmitting the disease. Social distancing is thus important for all age groups, the CDC stressed.

By the numbers: Among the 149,082 confirmed U.S. cases of COVID-19 that the CDC tracked as of April 2, 1.7% were patients under the age of 18.

The rapidly spreading COVID-19 epidemic has created an unusual situation: in each population that is infected by the virus, large parts of the population will be infected within a well-defined short time period, with near certainty. A major question is thus: Can the unusual predictability of the infections’ timing be utilized to mitigate the imminent infection’s length, severity, and probability of complications?

We suggest that priming the immune system for attack shortly before it is expected to occur, e.g. via a vaccine that elicits a broad anti-viral immune response, may have this desired effect. Early activation of the immune system would allow it to clear the infection faster and with less complications than otherwise. This would alleviate adverse clinical outcomes at the individual level, and mitigate population-level risk by reducing need for hospitalizations and decreasing the infectious period of individuals, thus slowing the epidemic’s spread and reducing its impact.

Covid-19 hits the old hardest, but young people are dying too. Scientists say it may be down to genes or ‘viral load’.

A drug used to treat HIV and cancer patients has shown success in treating some of the most severe coronavirus patients and was just cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to start a phase two clinical trial. Much of the work behind the drug is happening in Washington state.