In the midst of the worst surge of COVID-19 cases in the United States, many state and local officials are again wrestling with the hot-button issue of whether to shut schools down. Now, emerging research confirms that schools aren’t the primary drivers of outbreaks, but cases will seep in and contribute to the disease’s spread whenever a country loses control of containing the pandemic.

“They can and do get infected and transmit to others, but they do both less frequently than adults,” says Kári Stefánsson, the chief executive of deCODE.

This analysis is one in a recent flurry of large-scale studies that support the conclusion that infected adults pose a greater danger to children than kids do to adults. These studies