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?:abstract
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OBJECTIVES: The SARS-CoV-2 epidemic presents a poorly understood epidemiological cycle We aimed to compare the age and weekly distribution of the five human coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 that circulated in southeastern France METHODS: We analyzed all available diagnoses of respiratory viruses including SARS-CoV-2 performed between 09/2013 and 05/2020 at University Hospital Institute Méditerranée Infection in Marseille, Southeastern France RESULTS: For SARS-CoV-2, positive children <15 years of age represented 3 4% (228/6,735) of all positive cases, which is significantly less than for endemic coronaviruses (46 1%;533/1,156;p < 0 001) Among 10,026 patients tested for SARS-CoV-2 and endemic coronaviruses in 2020, children <15 years represented a significantly lower proportion of all positive cases for SARS-CoV-2 than for endemic coronaviruses [2 2% (24/1,067) vs 33 5% (149/445), respectively;p < 0 001] Epidemic curves for endemic coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2 in 91,722 patients showed comparable bell-shaped distributions with a slight time lag In contrast, age distribution of endemic coronaviruses and 14 other respiratory viruses differed very significantly compared to that of SARS-CoV2, which was the only virus to spare children CONCLUSIONS: Thus, we observed for SARS-CoV-2 a temporal distribution resembling that of endemic coronaviruses and an age distribution that spares the youngest subjects who are those the most exposed to endemic coronaviruses
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