What we know about coronavirus risks to school age children - CNN

At the height of the pandemic, New York saw a growing number of children hospitalized with troubling symptoms linked to coronavirus.

This is particularly true for children who have underlying conditions, such as obesity or lung disease," said Elizabeth Cohen, CNN's senior medical correspondent.

But children are not the only concern when schools reopen.

We don't know precisely how effective children are at passing on the virus that causes Covid-19, but it's a big concern," Cohen said.

And while numerous tests have been conducted to get more insight on the pathogen, not many have been focused on pediatric cases.

"Covid-19 is so new that we don't have nearly enough research on it for adults, let alone for children," Cohen said.

Much more research still needs to be done."

Unlike the flu, which has consistently shown that schools and children are major transmission instruments in communities, not as much is know on the coronavirus, said Dr.

"We really don't have evidence that children are driving the transmission cycle of this," he said.

However, he added, the ability of this virus to cause significant illness in children "is very, very — very limited."

The US data is incomplete because the country has not been testing enough children to determine how widespread the virus is, said Deborah Birx, a member of the White House coronavirus task force.

A majority of children under 18 don't have symptoms, she said.