Reports of more sickness—maybe even distinct sickness—from states such as Arkansas are worrisome. But maybe these startling effects are explicable. Permar said she isn’t yet seeing this trend play out on a national scale, particularly in states where demand for vaccines has been high. Perhaps kids in high-transmission states, where exposures to Delta are heavy and frequent, are simply being hit with more virus. Delta is already ace at accumulating in the airways of people of all ages, more frequently and more consistently than any variant before, according to Jennifer Dien Bard, the director of the clinical microbiology and virology laboratory at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. More inbound pathogen might further increase the amount of virus that sticks around to run roughshod over the body. That said, experts told me, it’s still possible that new data could pinpoint a unique effect of Delta on children, especially because so much of what we know already comes from studying adults.
The United Kingdom offers some encouraging clues, and might serve as a bellwether for America’s coming months. The variant’s recent reign triggered a climb in pediatric cases there as well, but kids didn’t seem to make up an unexpected proportion of the surge, Alasdair Munro, a pediatric infectious-disease physician at the NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility, told me. As things stand, he said, “there’s no indication” that Delta poses a particular menace to kids.
Read: Watch the U.K. to Understand Delta
Kids’ bodies can and do fight back, though an explanation for their tenacity remains elusive. One idea posits that kids’ airway cells might be tougher for the coronavirus to break into, Stephanie Langel, an immunologist at Duke University, told me. Another proposes that their immune system is especially adept at churning out an alarm molecule that buttresses the body against infection. Kids, Langel said, might even have a way of marshaling certain antibodies faster than adults, stamping out the virus before it has a chance to infiltrate other tissues.
Another upside is that although the coronavirus may be changing, the tools that thwart it haven’t. Delta is a substantial enemy, but not an undefeatable one. To protect kids, the AAP has championed the same layered approach that protects adults: combining masks, good ventilation, hygiene, physical distancing, access to testing, and vaccines for everyone who’s eligible. This tag-team tactic will be especially important as kids head back to school in droves this month and next, Grace Lee, a pediatrician at Stanford University, told me.
Read: The Best Way to Keep Your Kids Safe From Delta
Of course, masks are particularly contentious. Not all countries agree on the best approach when it comes to kids. The World Health Organization doesn’t recommend face coverings for children younger than 6. In the U.K., children under 11 haven’t routinely masked during the pandemic, and Munro says that, apart from strict quarantine and isolation protocols, schools in the U.K. will be looking “more or less normal” this year. In the U.S., though, where vaccine uptake has been a disastrous patchwork and the health-care system has already come under off-season strain, the CDC has recommended universal masking in schools for everyone older than 2. Every expert I spoke with stood behind the guidance: Face coverings and other safeguards, they said, would be a must for a successful academic year. Months of data have reinforced the notion that schools haven’t been a significant source of spread for the coronavirus, Beers, the AAP president, told me, which has led the organization to to strongly recommend that children return to in-person learning. But that evidence was amassed, she stressed, “with careful precautions in place,” including masking.
