Long COVID in kids

[Not_a_Number]

Now that I'm planning my summer and playdates for the kdis, I'd love to hear if anyone had thoughts on the data. 

Here's a study I was just reading: 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.03.03.21252086v1.full#disqus_thread

 

This is a study of non-hospitalized patients, although one without a control group. I thought it was interesting, however. 

 

Quote from the study: 

"Age distribution of all SARS-CoV-2 infected individuals at day 0-11 very closely mimicked that of the long-haulers, suggesting the latter group are distributed across all age groups with persons ages 50-59 range (± 20 years) representing more than 72% of the long-hauler population." 

 

So it sounds to me like we actually expect long COVID to be relatively prevalent, at least according to this study 😕 . Not that this is the perfect study, but it does not decrease my level of concern. 

Edited May 17, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

Here's the most encouraging study so far, but the median age in it is 3, which feels quite scary to generalize from: 

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(21)00124-3/fulltext

Plus, they had one case of MIS-C and one case of Kawasaki, which seems like rather a lot -- we aren't seeing 1% of cases with acute inflammatory stuff, thankfully. 

[Not_a_Number]

A not-so-encouraging study of older kids, although interestingly, this one doesn't have any kind of fatigue correlation: 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.15870

[kokotg]

Aside from the Italian study, what I've seen quoted most often is the figures from the Office for National Statistics in the UK: 

Quote

According to updated experimental estimates published by the ONS in January 2021, around 12.9% of children aged 2–11 years, 14.5% of those aged 12–16 years, and 17.1% of teenagers and young adults aged 17–24 years still had COVID-19 symptoms at 5 weeks after the initial onset.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/long-covid-and-children-the-unseen-casualties-of-covid-19#How-many-children-are-long-haulers?

I just read an article about how at least 5 hospitals in the US have set up clinics for long haul kids. 

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Aside from the Italian study, what I've seen quoted most often is the figures from the Office for National Statistics in the UK: 

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/long-covid-and-children-the-unseen-casualties-of-covid-19#How-many-children-are-long-haulers?

I just read an article about how at least 5 hospitals in the US have set up clinics for long haul kids. 

5 weeks is somehow not quite long-haul status, though. Like, I had the flu in November 2019, and I was feeling icky for probably 2 months. But not in a "there's going to be something wrong for a long time" way. I just coughed and coughed and coughed. I went through huge bags of Halls tablets. But it wasn't scary. 

[kokotg]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

5 weeks is somehow not quite long-haul status, though. Like, I had the flu in November 2019, and I was feeling icky for probably 2 months. But not in a "there's going to be something wrong for a long time" way. I just coughed and coughed and coughed. I went through huge bags of Halls tablets. But it wasn't scary. 

Yes, although how likely an illness is to drag on and be miserable does affect how far I'll go to avoid having my kid get it. 5 weeks is half a kid baseball season! 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, kokotg said:

Yes, although how likely an illness is to drag on and be miserable does affect how far I'll go to avoid having my kid get it. 5 weeks is half a kid baseball season! 

It's true, although I feel like the extent of my caution has been much more difficult on us than missing half a baseball season, lol. I'm certainly planning to comparatively ease up. Just debating what's required in the summer and next fall... 

[kokotg]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

It's true, although I feel like the extent of my caution has been much more difficult on us than missing half a baseball season, lol. I'm certainly planning to comparatively ease up. Just debating what's required in the summer and next fall... 

Baseball is the thing we eased up and let my 8 year old do this spring, so it's my frame of reference right now 🙂 . But, yeah, I've just been thinking also about how we view other illnesses in kids; the party line is that covid is nearly always mild in kids, which makes me think about how we mitigate risk with other childhood illnesses. Like I treat strep throat with antibiotics even though I'm generally a reluctant antibiotic user because there's a small risk of serious complications like scarlet fever, et. al. I'm just kind of musing and getting off topic, though. 

[Not_a_Number]

15 minutes ago, kokotg said:

Baseball is the thing we eased up and let my 8 year old do this spring, so it's my frame of reference right now 🙂 . But, yeah, I've just been thinking also about how we view other illnesses in kids; the party line is that covid is nearly always mild in kids, which makes me think about how we mitigate risk with other childhood illnesses. Like I treat strep throat with antibiotics even though I'm generally a reluctant antibiotic user because there's a small risk of serious complications like scarlet fever, et. al. I'm just kind of musing and getting off topic, though. 

Muse on! I always muse myself, anyway. 

We did treat strep throat, but then the only time we've had it in the family was when DD8 was 1, and she had stopped drinking, so we didn't have much choice. I'd definitely use antibiotics for strep either way, though. 

I suppose I haven't worried much about most childhood illnesses that aren't too risky. We vaccinate for everything and don't have a history of negative reactions or anything, so that's an easy one. But I suppose we're not super careful with handwashing and we certainly never masked before... 

[ktgrok]

17 hours ago, kokotg said:

Yes, although how likely an illness is to drag on and be miserable does affect how far I'll go to avoid having my kid get it. 5 weeks is half a kid baseball season! 

Yup. Or a LOT of make up work for school, or time off for a parent to care for a kid, etc. Now, that doesn't mean they were too sick for school that whole time, but you'd assume they are not at their best, either. 

Having a kid sick for a month, or maybe multiple kids in a row...ugh.....yeah...I'll vaccinate for that. 

[Lawyer&Mom]

My kids had low grade fevers in the afternoons for months and months after COVID.  Maybe they still do, I stopped checking.  (They do pass the morning fever check to go to school.)  They had very mild initial COVID, their only symptoms was constant low grade fevers for about three weeks.  I hope they don’t have any long term consequences, but who knows?

[Spy Car]

For medical professionals around the world who treat ME/CFS the most concerning symptom of Long Covid is PEM ("post-exertional malaise"), which means at people who are ill have increased expressions of their symptoms when they exercise or otherwise exceed their daily energy envelopes. For many ME/CFS patients the energy envelope is so narrow that simple daily activities like bathing can bring on a PEM attack, and these people remain bedbound. Others have a lesser degree of debilitation, but it is still a devastating illness.

PEM is the classic symptom to ME/CFS, which seems to be a post-viral illness. I'm not aware of any other illness that causes PEM. Ordinarily activity helps people's health, with ME/CFS  the opposite is true. Those who attempt to "push through" pay a huge price by become more ill.

So it is very concerning that among all the other symptoms where ME/CFS and Long Covid overlap perfectly, that PEM is being reported as a feature by many.

Long Covid would be concerning even if it only lasted six months or a year, and then people recovered. That would be rough. But if Long Covid is ME/CFS, that's currently a life sentence. No cure. No reliable treatments. Virtually no hope of recovery. 

So far Long Covid is indistinguishable from ME/CFS. Physicians and people with ME/CFS are sending up red flags.

Let's hope that most people with Long Covid recover. But the evidence of PEM is some is a very worrisome sign.

Bill

Edited May 18, 2021 by Spy Car

[Not_a_Number]

7 hours ago, Spy Car said:

For medical professionals around the world who treat ME/CFS the most concerning symptom of Long Covid is PEM ("post-exertional malaise"), which means at people who are ill have increased expressions of their symptoms when they exercise or otherwise exceed their daily energy envelopes. For many ME/CFS patients the energy envelope is so narrow that simple daily activities like bathing can bring on a PEM attack, and these people remain bedbound. Others have a lesser degree of debilitation, but it is still a devastating illness.

PEM is the classic symptom to ME/CFS, which seems to be a post-viral illness. I'm not aware of any other illness that causes PEM. Ordinarily activity helps people's health, with ME/CFS  the opposite is true. Those who attempt to "push through" pay a huge price by become more ill.

So it is very concerning that among all the other symptoms where ME/CFS and Long Covid overlap perfectly, that PEM is being reported as a feature by many.

Long Covid would be concerning even if it only lasted six months or a year, and then people recovered. That would be rough. But if Long Covid is ME/CFS, that's currently a life sentence. No cure. No reliable treatments. Virtually no hope of recovery. 

So far Long Covid is indistinguishable from ME/CFS. Physicians and people with ME/CFS are sending up red flags.

Let's hope that most people with Long Covid recover. But the evidence of PEM is some is a very worrisome sign.

Bill

I agree with you there. My initial assumption is that it is the same thing as CFS or is at least very similar, which is exactly why I'm terrified for my kids. But I wish I knew what the chances of it were... 

 

[Not_a_Number]

Bumping up now that Delta is upon us. Anyone have personal experience with long COVID in kids?