This is concerning

[owlstwooting]

Significant alert in respect of Children and Paediatric shock. It has been reported that over the past three weeks, there has been a rise in the number of Children presenting with a multisystem inflammatory state requiring intensive care.

Looks legit, sadly

mobile.twitter.com/ThePalpitations/status/1254529121134264322

It’s no so much if it’s true either as it may well maybe, it’s the fact it’s such a small number that’s at risk, that needs to be highlighted

Frustrating for sure, but just more of the same.

Ahhh, it’s professor Viner again..

Follow the science, so long as it's very very bad worrying science.

Schools have been off for 5 weeks and most Children have not been mixing outwith their families.
Yet this increase in serious symptoms over the last 3 weeks that may be related to covid has concerned the NHS enough that they sent out a 'significant alert' about it. It's too early to say definitively what the numbers are. It's good they have recognised it and are looking into it, but it's the unknown just now and it's scary.

That's my take on it.

I can’t live my life on a maybe, also all the professionals are saying how rare this is. We all see the information differently, if it worries that much then you will have to take the precautions you see fit.

Anything unknown can be scary, humans don’t do well with the unknown generally.

My approach to it though is, given that the virus itself is out of our control, what elements can we control? What practical steps can we take that are proportionate in the circumstances?

Awareness is a really positive thing because it allows us to, for example, seek medical advice earlier than we might otherwise do, to ask prompting questions of doctors if we think our child’s symptoms fit. Worry on it’s own won’t actually make any difference to anything.

The other massive positive that I’ve taken from this so far is that the children that are impacted seem to be responding well to treatment. Let’s hope that continues.

@owlstwooting they send out alerts like that all the time. Say a measles cluster has been noticed - an alert is sent.

The problem is here something that should initially have been kept (and yes it should have been) within the medical community who understand what it is and why it has been sent has been put out to a load of people already panicked about it.

I have said before this virus is like Schrodinger's cat because we dont know much about it we are in danger of literally seeing it as everything that scares us about viruses. And because there is not enough evidence in the scientific community to allay those fears they all exist at once.

And we then miss the one thing right in front of us. Is that keeping our children indoors for a risk that might not even exist or failing to seek medical advice for them because of the risk of catching CV when they need it are actual risks to their safety

It is definitely Schrodinger’s virus! Everything and nothing all at the same time!

Meme in the early days.

@rigabalsam exactly but I think it has gone beyond that now to becoming everything we fear in a virus because no one can tell us it isnt!
And now you can have it and still not be seen as immune

Agree Quartz

study of those hospitalised

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.23.20076042v1.full.pdf

This is a relatively elderly population, with median age 72 years [IQR 57, 82; range 0, 104]
(figure 1). Only 239 patients (2.0%) are under 18 years and only 139 patients (1.1%) are
under 5 years old. More men (60.2%, n=7,715) than women (39.8%, n=5,097) have been
admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (missing data n=4,001). Fifty-five (6%) of women of
reproductive age (n=963) are recorded as being pregnant.

I’m a nurse and this alert was sent to us earlier in the week. Yes scary, but also helpful. My daughter had sickness and high temp early Jan and I put it down to a bug, but could well have been something more serious. I believe that the more we educate ourselves on the signs and symptoms, the sooner we can do something about it and hopefully save more lives

Agree Nomo it can't be a bad thing to be more aware.

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/29/more-cases-of-rare-syndrome-in-children-reported-globally

As it says at the top of the article, a rare syndrome and not one child has died in the UK from it so it is treatable. It needs looking into but I don’t think we should be locking our children away because of it.

I agree with Nomo and I am with the OP too, being concerned and wanting all the known facts isn't the same thing as panicking. I think that people who are more aware realise that there is a risk but are also more aware of how to mitigate the risk, are less likely to panic.

I think that a lack of information results in people more likely to panic, or more likely to take the opposite view and be too complacent.

Quartz what you are looking at are figures due to lockdown, they would have been different without lockdown. We actually know quite a lot about this virus. Though obviously still a lot of unknowns too.

It does seem that in the UK there is less info available than in other countries - and posters here have said that "people might not understand". I am thankful that other countries have taken a different approach and for anyone wanting more info, the interviews by Prof WooJu are really fantastic, communicated in a way that lay people with just a basic understanding of viruses can understand. There are other scientists who are good communicators out there too. One of the interviews is linked above on this thread by @branster and they then link on to others on youtube.

The idea that the info shared on this thread about how this virus may be affecting some children should be kept top secret from the masses is wrong thinking on many levels, I think

I meant and are less likely to panic.

not one child has died in the UK from it so it is treatable treated and recovered, but potentially long term consequences, as doctors here saying before the NHS stopped the interviews here. It isn't something you'd want your dc to get and if you can take precautions without locking them away for months. It is a question of balance.

Sorry, not reading things before posting - ignore the erroneous "if"

The idea that the info shared on this thread about how this virus may be affecting some children should be kept top secret from the masses is wrong thinking on many levels, I think

I very much agree.

We do know a lot more than we did but there's so much we still don't know about how this virus behaves.

I'm concerned at the way it's been shown to affect T cells (and therefore I presume immune system),that it has been suggested it could be biphasic and linger in some people (many viruses do this), and obviously the Kawasaki like syndrome which is possibly linked or likely now it's been reported in a few countries.

I wonder if the syndrome could be a result of the immune system having 'fought off' the first part of the illness but not completely cleared it and the virus is lingering on. They did say some of the cases had had Covid recently before being admitted. Having already damaged or continuing to cause damage, possibly to T cells, the other parts of the immune system then go into overdrive trying to clear it. Just a lay woman's speculating.

There were - rare I think - cases in China where young adults had appeared to recover, were discharged but then had cardiac arrest.

I do know these things like Kawasaki and TSS can very rarely happen after illnesses, but the fact that medics in Europe and the US are noticing a pattern and alerting each other - I'm glad they are looking into it, but I do find this possible link terrifying tbh.

OP have you watched the video linked by branster above? The prof being interviewed talks about the possible relapse vs reinfection and when and why it might happen and also about how the immune system behaves in different people, the cytokine storm in young people.

I’m quite torn on this. On the one hand I generally believe that knowledge is power and it’s therefore good for this sort of thing to be made widely known so that people can advocate for themselves and their children.

On the other hand it’s clear that in reality all this announcement has done is create panic when really nothing is understood about whether this is linked To COVID or not and the guidelines to parents haven’t altered. You say yourself OP you are now terrified.

Realistically there will be no answers to any of this for months (possibly years) so has it really done anything positive? I’m not sure it has.

I think for most people the positive is just being aware and I am not aware of any panic? Then again, I haven't read the other thread. There is no panic in my real life. I have had zero panic, even though one of my dc was in IC a few years ago with an infection/virus (and it was pure hell)... though I did ask to quickly see their tongues to check whether they looked like strawberries. They didn't, thankfully.

You can't get rid of all risk and I wouldn't try but better to be aware I think.

The thing is that generally, I agree with you. Then I read how people are now terrified and how it means schools really, definitely shouldn’t go back and then I’m not sure.

My eldest son was born with sepsis (now completely fine following a scbu stay and lots of iv antibiotics) and my dad died of it so I’m wondering if those of us with direct experience of this sort of illness are actually LESS frightened by it? Because we are already well aware that these things can and do happen already? This is just another thing to be mindful of?

I don’t know, I’m just not sure if it’s worth terrifying people unless there’s some practical action they can actually take.

@iseeu why would the ratios be any different though. I agree the NUMBERS would be much much higher without lockdown but given that it was spreading through schools after February half term I cannot see how the ratios would be any different with lockdown.

Pretty much everything has lockdown (if you take care homes and key workers out) so why should lockdown affect the ratios. Please explain or give me data that shows that children would have been affected in a higher ratio if schools had continued.

@owlstwooting there is a difference though in how the information should be given to us. And it isnt in such a medical way. We should be aware of it and looking out for symptoms but done in an appropriate way. Twitter is NEVER that way

@Sunshinegirl82 perhaps as I said before my son had an awful reaction to scarlet fever but he detoriated whilst at OOH attached to A&E so he got early and prompt treatment which makes a difference. That is the bit we should be aware of