Coronavirus: Two-year-old becomes one of youngest in US to contract Covid-19

The boy did not need hospitalisation and is recovering at home

A two-year-old in Ohio has become one of the youngest in the US to have tested positive for coronavirus.

The boy, who was not identified by the Franklin County spokesperson, is the youngest to test positive in Ohio, WLWT-5 reports.

They confirmed that the boy is recovering at home and did not need hospitalisation for treatment.

A paper, published in the journal Pediatrics, found the effects of Covid-19 on children were less serious than has been seen in adults.

“Why most of the children’s Covid-19 cases were less severe than adults’ cases is puzzling. This may be related to both exposure and host factors,” the author wrote.

“Children were usually well cared for at home and might have relatively less opportunities to expose themselves to pathogens and/or sick patients.”

The two-year-old is not the youngest case reported however, as a newborn baby in the UK tested positive for Covid-19 last week, after being tested minutes after birth, according to The Sun.

Although pregnant woman are more vulnerable to catching infections, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists say that they “do not appear to be more severely unwell if they develop coronavirus than the general population”.

According to the Covid Tracking Project at their last update, 82,571 had been tested so far in the US.

Their data shows that there have been 228 tests in Ohio so far, with 88 positive and 140 negative.

Some 9,487 cases of the disease have been recorded so far in the US, and 157 deaths.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended a two-week ban on gatherings of more than 50 people as part of the battle to contain the spread of the contagion.