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Long Covid in Kids


SoCal_Bear
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I've been trying to watch and interpret the numbers and it's really hard 😕 . 

The most encouraging numbers that people have come up with are in the single percent, but they are really dubious. They are from that Switzerland (?) study that followed kids with antibodies and from the Zoe app study. Both have really serious methodological flaws that would tend to understate the issues: having antibodies doesn't necessarily mean you once had a serious active infection, and it's not at all clear that self-report by the Zoe app is reliable. Frankly, I'd expect people whose kids have long COVID to stop reporting symptoms eventually, not to mention which the symptoms wax and wane, which throws off the numbers... 

On the other hand, the numbers people have come up with by following hospitalized kids are also obviously dubious and not to be relied on. 

One intriguing suggestion I saw was that one should interpret the Zoe app data to mean that the rate of kids getting long COVID is about half of the rate of adults, which matches other estimates I've seen. That is to say that the Zoe app underestimates both the adults and the kids, but that possibly it keeps the ratio right... in which case you'd expect something like 10% of kids to have long-term issues of some sort. The question, of course, is how long they last... 

Edited by Not_a_Number
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8 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Even if the issues last only a short time, that still be devastating to a child. Could it impact their development? What if a child missed a year of school? They may never catch up with their peers again. 

Agreed, although I'd still weigh that differently than disability for the rest of their life 😕

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2 minutes ago, Vintage81 said:

Saw this thread on Twitter with other studies referenced. Not sure if it’s helpful, but thought I’d share. You should be able to click the link and see the thread with several doctors commenting…
 

 

 

The data is super noisy. I already replied upthread about the issues with the reassuring studies. 

They MAY be right. Or they may not. All the studies I've currently seen are seriously flawed. 

 

 

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I suppose without diving deep into the studies that generally speaking I give more weight to the UK studies. They don't have to gather data because it is all there in the NIH. It's universal healthcare so everyone in theory has equal access. They can see data on on the patients prior to Covid as well.

 

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22 minutes ago, calbear said:

I suppose without diving deep into the studies that generally speaking I give more weight to the UK studies. They don't have to gather data because it is all there in the NIH. It's universal healthcare so everyone in theory has equal access. They can see data on on the patients prior to Covid as well.

I don't know how careful they are about doing the before/after stuff or about having a control group. I really would have to do a deep dive to make sense of it all. 

The Zoe app study is also a UK study, by the way, but not by way of the NIH.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/9/2021 at 12:37 PM, calbear said:

Dr. Francis Collins says one study is showing around 11 - 15% chance of long covid in kids.

@Not_a_Number I know this is something you wanted to know more about. 

https://news.yahoo.com/really-scary-kids-struggle-long-115416939.html

 

I’m shocked at that percentage though I wonder what percent of kids are infected with such minimal symptoms that they don’t get tested? My daughter had  Covid with her kids in the house. She didn’t have them tested because they were so young but all they got was a bit of a fever and minimally symptomatic. Obviously not having them tested wold skew percentages. I know several people who opted not to have kids tested after someone in the house was positive.

On 8/9/2021 at 3:24 PM, Ordinary Shoes said:

Even if the issues last only a short time, that still be devastating to a child. Could it impact their development? What if a child missed a year of school? They may never catch up with their peers again. 

If a child missed a year (or two) it would not permanently make a child behind. As homeschoolers, we should be well aware of this. 

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4 minutes ago, BlsdMama said:

I’m shocked at that percentage though I wonder what percent of kids are infected with such minimal symptoms that they don’t get tested? My daughter had  Covid with her kids in the house. She didn’t have them tested because they were so young but all they got was a bit of a fever and minimally symptomatic. Obviously not having them tested wold skew percentages. I know several people who opted not to have kids tested after someone in the house was positive.

If a child missed a year (or two) it would not permanently make a child behind. As homeschoolers, we should be well aware of this. 

I agree that in the homeschool world, we can make up for lost time pretty quickly when motivated. However, for kids in the PS, my experience is that sadly they do not. It just gets exponentially worse. PS is not set up to really do the one to one or small group tutoring required to not only help kids catch up.but stay caught up. So it is a BIG problem for many children's and this is year two of total chaos, so the gaps could be huge, and the remediation typically takes place not during childhood, but as adults in adult ed and community college 90 level coursework that one pays per credit hour but does not count towards anything. That is expensive. Or in paying to take G.E.D. readiness classes another outcome.

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20 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

I agree that in the homeschool world, we can make up for lost time pretty quickly when motivated. However, for kids in the PS, my experience is that sadly they do not. It just gets exponentially worse. PS is not set up to really do the one to one or small group tutoring required to not only help kids catch up.but stay caught up. So it is a BIG problem for many children's and this is year two of total chaos, so the gaps could be huge, and the remediation typically takes place not during childhood, but as adults in adult ed and community college 90 level coursework that one pays per credit hour but does not count towards anything. That is expensive. Or in paying to take G.E.D. readiness classes another outcome.

I'd have to agree there. A "lost year" isn't a big deal when people will pick up wherever you left off. It's a huge deal if all the instruction going forward is over your head 😞 . 

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We have moved during the school year and even when it's the same yearly standards, still with things being in a different order, it has been a problem.  

The kind of problem where because I helped at home it worked out okay, but I can totally see how it might not have worked out okay without some extra help at home.  Super depressing.  Edit: This is a theme with public school, even though I also am so grateful and appreciative of many, many things.  

Edited by Lecka
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20 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Gee, it's almost like there would be some benefit to consistency from one school to the next. Maybe we could call it the "Common Core." Oh wait...that was tyranny just like masks and vaccination requirements. 🙄

I will say that while I like the IDEA of Common Core, I'm not actually happy with what they came up with. I mostly know it from my experience teaching math, of course, but from that perspective, I think it's not great. It's probably better than what was there before, and I think the hysteria about it was ridiculous, but I also don't like it that much. 

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