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Here in Sweden all kindergartens and schools up to the month of June the year people turn 16 remain open. In almost all other European country schools are closed.

I do not really know why our schools are open, the official policy is unclear. One idea though is to get the children to catch the disease while the elders remain in hiding in order to acquire more immunity in the society.

However, according to some Chinese study younger people seem to be able to fight the disease without antibodies. In the age group 15-39 the number of antibodies found were less then a third of the number of antibodies found in the age group 60-85.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3078840/coronavirus-low-antibody-levels-raise-questions-about

Question: To what extent does infected people in the age group 0-16 develop antibodies against covid-19?

I know that presence of antibodies do not necessarily guarantee immunity against reinfection but if children do not produce enough antibodies they will obviously not be immune.

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  • $\begingroup$ There are many levels in the word immune, children are mostly immune against the disease and their innate immune system has to do something with it. That said they often develop a benign infection and a question is if they are contagious (a single children probably not much, due to Chinese studies not finding any single case where contagion from a children was obvious, but as a population, in schools with many close contacts and poor hygiene it might be very different). $\endgroup$
    – reuns
    Apr 19, 2020 at 8:31
  • $\begingroup$ One report stated that closing schools only has a marginal effect. If they are not sneezing and coughing and putting snot in rags, it limits their viral output. people who don't even have a temperature don't have as high numbers of a virus as people who have flu symptoms. For antibodies, it seems that children's immune system does actively fight the virus very efficiently, and that would be with antibodies. studies will take a while. $\endgroup$
    – bandybabboon
    Apr 19, 2020 at 19:48

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