If you put this article postulating how the novel coronavirus actually kills people (cytokine storms wreaking havoc on healthy cells as well as infected cells) alongside this article explaining how children have reduced cytokine expression, you might have the answer as to why that “immune system immaturity” might confer a strongly protective benefit.
If there is a known and safe therapy to knock down that particular part of the immune system (cytokine expression) it might offer an avenue of therapeutic treatment which is not directly anti-viral. There is a class of drugs termed “cytokine suppressive anti-inflammatory drugs” or CSAIDs. They can prevent cytokine-induced inflammation of bodily tissues in certain contexts. I wonder if these drugs could be used in the context of a viral infection with sequelae of the sort we see in COVID-19.
