Most youngsters recuperate shortly from COVID-19, however some have lingering signs, a examine says

Written by Emily Anthes
Most youngsters with COVID-19 recuperate inside per week, however a small share expertise long-term signs, based on a brand new examine of greater than 1,700 British youngsters. The researchers discovered that 4.4% of youngsters had signs that final 4 weeks or longer, whereas 1.8% have signs that final for eight weeks or longer.
The findings recommend that what has typically been known as “long COVID” could also be rarer in youngsters than adults. In a earlier examine, a few of the similar researchers discovered that 13.3% of adults with COVID-19 had signs that lasted at the very least 4 weeks and 4.5% had signs that lasted at the very least eight weeks.
“It is reassuring that the number of children experiencing long-lasting symptoms of COVID-19,” is low, Dr. Emma Duncan, an endocrinologist at King’s College London and lead creator of the examine, mentioned in a press release. “Nevertheless, a small number of children do experience long illness with COVID-19, and our study validates the experiences of these children and their families.”
The examine, revealed Tuesday within the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, relies on an evaluation of information collected by the COVID Symptom Study smartphone app. The paper focuses on 1,734 youngsters between the ages of 5 and 17 who examined optimistic for the virus and developed signs between Sept. 1 and Jan. 24. Parents or caregivers reported the youngsters’s signs within the app.
In most circumstances, the sickness was delicate and brief. Children had been sick for six days, on common, and skilled a median of three signs. The most typical signs had been headache and fatigue.
But a small subset of youngsters skilled lingering signs, together with fatigue, headache and a lack of odor. Children between 12 and 17 had been sicker for longer than youthful youngsters and extra prone to expertise signs that lasted at the very least 4 weeks.

“We hope our results will be useful and timely for doctors, parents and schools caring for these children — and of course the affected children themselves,” Duncan mentioned.
The researchers additionally in contrast youngsters who examined optimistic for the coronavirus with those that reported signs within the app however examined damaging for the virus. Children who examined damaging — and will have had different diseases, corresponding to colds or the flu — recovered extra shortly and had been much less prone to have lingering signs than these with COVID-19. They had been unwell for 3 days, on common, and simply 0.9% of youngsters had signs that lasted at the very least 4 weeks.