Symptomatology during seasonal coronavirus infections in children is associated with viral and bacterial co-detection

Emma M. de Koff; Marlies A. van Houten; Elisabeth A.M. Sanders; Debby Bogaert

The copyright holder for this preprint . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03.24.20038828 doi: medRxiv preprint were not observed ( Figure 1D ). H. influenzae/haemolyticus was also significantly differentially 72 abundant between HCoV-negative cases and HCoV-negative controls, though the effect size 73 was smaller than between HCoV-positive cases and HCoV-positive controls. Importantly, we 74 community-dwelling children, which is in line with previous reports [7, 8] . HCoV carriage and 79 disease seems, as most viral infections, highly seasonal in children. As aforementioned, mild 80 and asymptomatic paediatric cases with high viral loads are also observed in the current 81 COVID-19 pandemic [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] . The contribution to the spread of the disease by these children 82 currently remains unknown, but is potentially substantial given significant viral shedding also 83 occurs in asymptomatic children [6] , and because they keep mixing with family members and 84 other individuals in the community [12] . is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.