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

They’re not even sure if it’s coronvirus related, some of the children tested negative. Yes it is concerning and needs looking into but we need to keep things into prospective.

Does anyone have the hospital numbers at that would rest my mind over deaths.

Yes here you go:

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/04/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-28-April-2020.xlsx

everyone has been social distancing for 5 weeks and if you think about it they were the starting point of a lot from ski trips to Italy

Its a virus of course there are some risks to children but thankfully unlike some virus it is less than adults.

This doesnt change that just gives a heads up for something to look at

I meant admissions at all. Not deaths but thanks

Very t8my Numbers, and no proven link. Maybe kids would have got this co diction via other means too? Maybe co existing infections?

My son had an illness called HSP (Henoch Schonlein Pupora) two years ago, it causes blood vessels to leak and joints to swell and can cause kidney disease. He had no long lasting effects apart from tiredness for months afterwards.
His susceptibility to that and the similarities with Kawasaki does make me concerned, I hope there is more information available soon.

@Alex50

Even if very few children are becoming seriously ill, the fact it’s presenting like an autoimmune condition is very concerning. The long-term effects of exposure after even no or mild symptoms could be serious. We’re just starting to understand the long-term effects of some acute illnesses.

This isn’t widely known yet, but it’s recently been discovered that approx 70% of cases of IBS have a root cause in food poisoning. In some cases, the food poisoning symptoms were so mild the individual cannot remember having food poisoning. At this stage, it’s relatively easy to clear up the IBS with a particular antibiotic.

However, in some individuals, repeated bouts of food poisoning go on to cause an autoimmune condition where the person’s immune system attacks the cells in their intestines. This causes increasingly severe IBS which is no longer easily treatable and increases the chances of developing other autoimmune conditions. Because once you have one autoimmune condition you are more likely to get others.

About 10% of cases of acute gastroenteritis go on to longer term IBS. Worldwide, 10-20% of people have IBS. That’s around 1 billion people of people have long-term health issues after food poisoning. A proportion of those go on to have autoimmune problems.

So exposing people, especially young people to something which may affect their immune systems for the rest of their lives is very concerning. Especially when we are not focusing on eradicating the virus, but on achieving “manageable” levels of it, possibly followed by “herd immunity” and are unclear whether it’s possible to have the virus on more than one occasion or if long-term immunity arises, and if the virus mutates quickly enough to render any immunity insufficient.

I wonder whether as well a fear of wanting to go and treat it leads to a secondary infection which in turn leads to this.

I remember when DS had an awful reaction to Scarlet fever he went from having just a temp to being floppy with a non blanching rash - so it can happen fast with any virus

@lamppotkettle I have been to A&E a few times with DS and admitted 3 times - children get viruses and some can have bad reactions (he was prone with both the scarlet fever and viral wheeze).

The way I see Coronavirus (and as a caveat this is just my personal opinion) is that in many ways it is not worse than other viruses around (measles/chicken pox and for children the flu) but these happen in small outbreaks. The worry for Coronavirus is that as no one has immunity its like a wildfire. So the others above are small fires that can be put out and contained easily. This is a wildfire so far harder to contain.

That is why hospital admissions etc may not help because they are going to be higher than other viruses for this reason. But the actual risk of complications from them is no different to for example the scarlet fever I mentioned. So the risk for an individual child is still low

The difficulty is that the long term effects (if any) won’t be know for years. Unless we keep our children entirely secluded for 5/10 years until we are sure of the effects Long term there is a limit in what we can practically do.

Eradicating the virus is unlikely to be possible no matter how long we lockdown. We have to accept that I think and look for how best to manage the risks as best we can.

@sunshinegirl82 New Zealand have pretty much eradicated community spread.

An extensive track and trace programme would be capable of flattening not just squashing the curve.

www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/uk-politics/2172952/coronavirus-expert-raises-hopes-of-end-to-social-distancing-this-year/

Things like tighter borders and quarantines would be necessary to stop it’s re-introduction.

So I don’t think it’s correct to say we just have to accept it and manage the risks. Whether we want to make the kind of efforts that would be necessary to eradicate is another question.

New Zealand locked down when they had almost no cases. That is not the case here. They also have a fraction of the population in a country many times the size of the U.K.

Germany have also used an intense track and trace programme, as have South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. They have not completely eliminated the virus. I really think if elimination in the U.K. is what people are hoping for they will be disappointed, certainly before mass vaccination.

@Alex50 Some of the Children tested positive for covid, some tested negative but there was evidence they had in fact had covid recently before their admission, and some tested negative.

@TheStarryNight Completely agree!!

@owlstwooting All the wording i have seen there maybe a link to coronvirus, please show me a link where it is proven?

6000 children die each year but we don’t keep them at home, 9 have died from coronvirus, 2 with no known health issues. I don’t think children will be going to school anytime soon anyway so no need to worry.

@Inkpaperstars and @branster just to say thanks for the links.

@Sunshinegirl82

The article I linked to mentions a substantial track and trace programme with a time frame from now until Xmas.

The countries you mention which haven’t eliminated the virus have had a track and trace programme over a shorter period than that.

Yes, New Zealand is smaller and locked down faster, but they have virtually eliminated the virus within a much shorter period. We share the feature of being an island nation.

I’ll also mention that for example Germany have found since easing lockdown that numbers have risen again, leading to a need to re-tighten lockdown.

So although Xmas seems a long way off now, realistically we are locking at a period of lockdown-ease-lockdown-ease potentially for much longer than that. Basically until a vaccine can be found. Which is next year at the earliest.

There’s no guarantee one will be found. There’s no guarantee “herd immunity” will be achievable either- we don’t know if immunity is conferred. And large numbers of people will die, and we will have allowed people to become infected with a virus about which we have no real idea of the long term consequences.

So lockdown, social distancing, masks in public, tight border controls/quarantine and a massive test and trace programme could well be much quicker than relying on herd immunity or vaccination.

In fact, the kind of approach New Zealand has taken is the only approach so far that has actually achieved anything tangible. Treatment, vaccination, herd immunity- no real results yet.

But the fact that we know there is a 13 year old on a ventilator makes it clear how rare it is. We know everytime there is a child who dies from this. We dont for all the other ages.

That should tell us something

I was scared of this virus before. Now I'm terrified.
My kids have been amazing only gone out even for exercize possible twice in past 5 weeks. But no more. It's not worth the risk.

I suspect that a significant minority of children have already had it with no symptoms, and so whether there is a long term effect or not it is too late to do anything about it for now. In time something may be possible if it turns out to be an issue, eg you can vaccinate against shingles even if you have already had chicken pox.

@allthingsred that is so sad, I really do feel for children living through this. You have to do what you think is right for your children. We all see the information we are given differently but there are no definite answers either way.

@TheStarryNight

It seems likely that the plan is to implement a track and trace programme once numbers are low enough for it to be effective. Why else would they be bringing out a contact tracing app and employing 18,000 contact tracers? Obviously if that eliminates the virus entirely then fantastic. I don’t believe it will but I’d be delighted to be proved wrong!

I’d suggest it’s much more likely that the track and trace programme combined with some social distancing keeps cases at a lowish level for the foreseeable. The virus will still exist just in a contained way which will reduce the overall risks to everyone (hopefully). The risk won’t be entirely gone though.

I’m not sure what it is you are advocating to happen? Are you suggesting we shield children entirely until Christmas/such time as the virus is eliminated? Or all stay locked down until Christmas? That really is not sustainable in my view. New Zealand have only had to maintain their lock down for a month or so. It remains to be seen if the elimination of the virus there can be maintained long term. The reality is that we are at such an early stage of this that no one route can definitely be identified as the “right” way forward, we just don’t know enough to make a call on it.

There has been really positive news coming out over the last few days about the Oxford vaccine and if that proves effective they should be able to start producing it in September which would obviously be fantastic. Nothing is certain obviously, it can’t be, but positive news is good.

Without a vaccine even those countries that are able to eliminate the virus (at least in the short term) will remain forever susceptible to its reintroduction unless a synchronised, global suppression campaign takes place in every country in the world which I’m not sure is achievable.

@Alex50

Where did I say there is a proven link at the moment please??

I said that some of the affected Children tested covid positive, some tested negative but there was evidence they'd had covid recently, some tested negative.

The alert issued to medics raised a possible link. Other countries have seen the same.

Matt Hancock said he is concerned.

Our Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said it's "entirely plausible" there is a link.

Hopefully more will learnt, information will become clearer.

They are investigating a possible link. That is worrying.