'Significant numbers of children become seriously ill with Covid-19'

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childrensnational.org/news-and-events/childrens-newsroom/2020/significant-number-of-children-become-seriously-ill-with-covid-19

Those who like to use the word mongering when posters talk about poor outcomes, look away now.

We don't know enough to send children back to school. About the virus. About the scope of our government's scientific advice. About our competency to meet the tests for leaving lockdown. They seem to have become conditional but they needed to be non-negotiable.

We're not Finland. We're utterly crap compared to Finland. So let's not pretend we'll have Finland's outcomes just because Finland is clever. (And roomy).

For those who think it's vanishingly unlikely to be your child. Fair enough. But it will be someone's child. So let's get our ducks in a row and hold the government accountable to deliver a competent, proven test and trace system with a low enough transmission rate to ensure it will work.

This is not flu. Flu doesn't create this kind of death toll. We don't even know what it is yet but the urban myths about children being invincible and harmless if infected need to stop. If this goes wrong and we have a vaccine in the the time frame put forward by some researchers, we'll point the finger at the government for not making us wait. Let think twice about what we do instead. The government are responding partly to pressure from the electorate. So let's pressurise them to be competent.

This isn't the blitz... It's potentially so much worse. Our current advisors are saying the only good thing about COVID-19 is the way it passed over children. That isn't the case and it isn't something to rely on.

Not on Mumsnet EllaBella222. And it's not just coronavirus either, it's other things too. I come up across this negative attitude on this forum continually.

In 2014-2015 28,000 people in the UK died of flu.

Yes schools were still open

It’s about risk assessment.

This complication has similarities with Kawasaki disease as does measles. From July to Sept last year, there were 93 cases of measles in children in the UK and this is with a vaccination programme.

Yes, of course you can’t compare the figures directly, for a start we don’t know what role underlying conditions play or whether there were/are any. But it helps provide some context to the data which the media are glaringly failing to do.

My son had mumps last year as a result of what was termed a failed MMR. There is no treatment for mumps, it’s a waiting game to see if it develops into something more serious. Would we vaccinate again? Of course and he went on to have his booster a few months later. Is he at risk of measles? Who knows but I need to balance up the risk versus his access to education, family life, play dates, playing in the playground.

Schools have a limited impact on spread as does restricting international travel. That comes from a close friend who has worked in public health and on pandemic modelling. We should be free to make our own decision as to whether to send our children in - I will and I have friends who won’t - but scaremongering parents and vilifying them for the choice they make is very dangerous.

Out of the people I've encountered who are against schools opening 98% of them have been

1. Teachers
2. Not working

It's really easy to be principled about something when it benefits you or at least has no negative effect on you. In an ideal world we'd all keep our kids home and stay home ourselves until this has all blown over but we just can't. My husband and I need to work.

Here are the numbers of children who have died from coronvirus, 11 all together, 3 without any health issues. Only 31 people under 40 have died without health issues, under 200 overall, this is up to 7th May.

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/COVID-19-total-announced-deaths-12-May-2020.xlsx

@Fleura - digression from the topic at hand but they can test to see whether your ds has any immunity to measles. As an adult I was checked as part of a job induction five years ago and had to have the MMR again. Coincidentally mumps was the only thing I wasn’t immune to out of the three but obviously it’s a combined vaccine so I had the lot.

Just thought I’d mention it if it’s something you would rather know for sure.

My son had mumps last year as a result of what was termed a failed MMR

My dd had mumps also, despite 3x MMR. For her it was relatively mild, 5 days quarantine and a swollen face. For her friend it was two weeks in HDU after they developed serious complications. Also vaccinated.

probably the same of even more chance of harm to kids from mumps as from CV. Yet we aren’t shutting schools for that.

And again, the anti vax idiots are putting my child and her friend at risk knowingly. The disease is only reappearing because the vaccination rates are too low.

Why are people prepared to risk their childrens lives and not get them vaccinated? Yet won’t send them to school in case they catch a different virus with the same risks?

Stop scaremongering with stuff you understand absolutely nothing about, OP.

Corona virus isn’t the only risk to children. As many have died through domestic abuse during this period as have died from the virus.

If you don't want to send you kids to school don't. Home school them.

Don't stop the schools and nurseries opening for those that want/need to send their kids to school.

I'm more concerned about the damage we're doing to our kids physical and mental wellbeing keeping them couped up inside away from other humans, than I am of an illness that has killed 2 children in the entire country.

My ds nearly died from strep when he was a baby. He had a 50/50 chance of survival. Was in an induced coma in PICU for a week. These things happen, kids get ill. I didn't and don't lock him away from the world because of it because it's not healthy. My son has actually been back at nursery for 3 weeks because I didn't think it was fair keeping him at home.

Not everyone establishes immunity after vaccines - I don’t have measles immunity despite 3x boosters in adult life. There’s some thought that non responders might have innate immunity.
Just to be clear I’m pro vaccinations.

poshme there's a vaccine for flu. My dc get it every year at school.

However, the daily briefings (that I've heard) have not addressed the issue of complications in children at all.

The chief medical officer has, in press conferences, repeatedly stated and emphasised how very rare this complication is. Repeatedly. Its not the messaging that is the problem. It's the selective listening.

I agree with you OP. Sick of legitimate concerns being labelled as 'scaremongering'.

Some people also seem to forget when they post of such 'small numbers' (well, 75 - 100 Children in the UK being treated) , that we've been in lockdown and Children have been off school for 7 weeks, and still these numbers despite that.

PIMS-TS, for Paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with Sars-CoV-2, is the name for the new syndrome.

The long term health impacts of Covid itself aren't even known yet.

I don't think we should be risking Children's lives.

My DC are old enough to stay home themselves (eldest mid teens, youngest older tween). If I had a two parent Family, I would downsize all outgoings and have one Parent working. I'd leave younger Children with older siblings if safe. I'm not suggesting those who have to or want to send DC back to school and socialising are wrong, of course not, everyone has the right to do as they choose. What I am against is this 'shutting down' of legitimate concerns regarding Children and Covid, risks which are now emerging and have not been looked into enough yet by governments for some reason.

I don't think we should be risking Children's lives

Every time you put them in a car you pose a far greater risk to their lives than sending them to school.

More children die on the journey to school every day than are at risk from CV or the new syndrome.

More children die as a consequence of home accidents.

Children die playing rugby

Should we just lock them in a room permanently?

"Significant" meaning what proportion of a) all children and b) children who test positive for c19?

Even a small risk is too big a risk when it comes to my children, feeling lucky to live in scotland, id say september is a safer time.

The fact that the numbers have risen from 20 to 100 in just a few weeks is a concern, but hopefully it will peak and fall and track the virus infection rates generally. I am not sure there is much scaremongering going on. Discussing the numbers is not scaremongering and everyone will have their own idea about what risk they are prepared to accept. What's not ok is to be aggressive onwards those who have made a different decision perhaps because their life circumstances are different.

I think people deal with threats differently, some will seek to minimise this information as a coping strategy initially because let's face it, it's not good news is it. It underlined the need for caution rather than abandon in all we do.

Why would September be safer?

My dd has been at home since 13th March.
Hasn't been anywhere, but had Corona Toes, we believe she caught it on the short 30 min train journey home from school.
She hasn't been out since and her toes are just better now.
They are painful, scab over and bits of black dead skin comes off like scabs.
We don't know if we'd had it previously during january whn she'd have been at school (boarder), so don't know if she'd have passed it to us through her infected toes.
We were surprised as none of us have been anywhere except dh goes to Tesco occasionally.
I'm saying this as we really don't know who will catch what from whom and when.

Whatever the anecdotes it is not true to say that significant numbers of children have become seriously unwell.

If you want to stay home, fine. But don't try to bring everyone else into this weird world of lockdown till everything is 100% safe because it never will be.

Many children's lives are being risked, in far more serious and longer lasting ways, by the closure of schools. At the moment it looks as if covid19 poses a very low risk to children. Can you not weigh these up and come to a conclusion like the government has?

Obviously your own risk assessment may differ, but in what way do you want these disadvantaged kids who haven't been seen by anyone but their families for 7 weeks to continue not to be seen by another adult until september or even further into the future?

That's without even considering ordinary children missing out on an education and socialising with their peers which is also vitally important.

If you think 0% risk of dying weighs up positively against this then carry on

The way I think about it is that there is a small risk from all viruses/illnesses of a negative reaction (sepsis etc). Obviously it is concerning to see so many cases in such a short space of time. The question for me is how prevalent is this reaction among infected children? 1 in 1000 seems quite low to me but I would be interested to know how it compares to other childhood illnesses.

Obviously there are huge numbers of cases of coronavirus happening simultaneously. If every child in the country contracted chicken pox simultaneously would you see a similar spike of cases like this (ie complications for a small number of those affected)?

So what’s the answer, we never send our children to school until there’s a vaccine? Do we not weigh up risks every day when we send our children to school? There was a stabbing near my daughter’s school, nothing to do with the school. Not one parent questioned sending their children to school, obviously we were worried but you weigh up the risk.

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