The role of children in the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic remains unclear. It has been inferred from other viral epidemics that children may play a driving role in the transmission chain. However, the epidemiological record has challenged this assumption as children only infrequently have been identifed as active infectors. At the same time the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic seems to proceed at a surprisingly slow pace in populations with a high proportion of children. In this review we explore the role of children from a multipronged theoretical framework based on the current epidemiological as well as basic scientific record. In particular, we follow up on suggestions that children may have a moderating rather than aggravating impact on the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and ask if this may in part be based on age dependent effects.
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Renz‐Polster et al. (2020) studied this question.