4 ms·

Most studies I've seen show "long covid" to be pretty rare in children. Perhaps something like 5% of children who test positive have mild symptoms a month later

Most studies I've seen show "long covid" to be pretty rare in children. Perhaps something like 5% of children who test positive have mild symptoms a month later. [1] This is somewhat consistent with other respiratory virus infections we've known about. [2] It's possible our risk tolerance is way different but this is personally an acceptable number for me not to worry about my own child. [1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/08/long-covid-19-rare-children-study-says https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/08/long-cov... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31718695/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31718695/

murgindrag 5y ago
I don't think this represents most studies, but the far lower end. If we're going to cherry-pick, here's one which shows more than half of kids show at least one symptom 120 days out: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.23.21250375v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.23.21250375v... My best guess is that it's around 10%-20% -- that's sort of in the middle where studies land. I suspect a big part of the problem is which child and which COVID. I would speculate alpha, delta, mu, etc. all have different rates. I think the second question is the distribution of symptoms. None of the studies are sensitive enough to pick up a 5% loss in IQ, lung capacity, or similar. Do some kids get it and others don't? Or is there a bell curve of symptoms, and we're picking up kids with the more extreme versions? If it's a bell curve, it's pretty scary. All kids could be harmed to the level of e.g. lead exposure, and we wouldn't notice.