Children are unlikely to be “big high output transmitters” of coronavirus, a government medical adviser has said.

Speaking at yesterday’s Downing Street briefing, deputy chief medical officer for England Professor Jonathan Van-Tam was asked about children’s ability to transmit the virus to adults.

He said “data are pretty sparse at the moment”.

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Professor Van-Tam added: “But the experts have already had a look at this and formed a conclusion that, unlike influenza, unlike flu, where we are very clear that children drive transmission in the community to adults, it really does not seem to be the same kind of signal with Covid-19; that children are not these kind of big high output transmitters as they are with flu.”

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He also said that most children have only “extremely mild” Covid-19 symptoms and the infection rate among them is “about the same” as in adults, but “possibly a little lower” in younger children.

A row over when primary schools in England should reopen to more pupils is raging on, with unions saying that the government’s planned 1 June openings are “extremely unlikely”.