Are children getting ill with new strain?

[christmascake246]

I have not seen anything about children getting ill with the new strain just testing positive. However my friends son, age 11 but in year 7 is quite ill with covid despite no known health conditions. Is this very unusual? What symptoms are children getting?

Sorry to hear that.

Is he in hospital or is it more like a bad fever and feeling awful?

Have (rarely) heard of the latter but the former has so far been extremely rare.

I have 4 children. One had no symptoms the other three were ill. One not hospitalised but very very unwell. Enough for me to be quite worried for 2 weeks.

My eldest DD (7) had awful stomach pains (pains NOT ache) for several days, AWFUL as in crying her eyes out on the floor bent double night after night asking me to make it stop. Haven’t seen either of my girls like that before. I felt bloody heartbroken for her and totally helpless. There were a lot of 111 calls. She still gets tired easily and isn’t back to herself at all. My youngest DD (4) who brought it back from school, swatted it off like a fly. Needless to say I’ll be damned if I’m sending them back to school until we are all vaccinated.

@Ladydowntheroad I am so sorry to hear your dd was not well. Happy to hear your younger dd felt better. However shouldn’t they now be immune and you don’t need to worry about school? I’m also thinking twice about school now but would feel better about sending them if they already had it. What a hard year for everyone x

He was in hospital but now home. Lots of gastro symptoms/dehydration rather than breathing as far as I understand so seems very different to adults. There still doesnt appear to be anything in media about children getting symptoms with new strain just that they are testing positive/carriers.

Anyone working in hospital are you seeing kids with covid or on 111 calls??

@Kitcat122

I have 4 children. One had no symptoms the other three were ill. One not hospitalised but very very unwell. Enough for me to be quite worried for 2 weeks.

How was it confirmed that they had the new strain? I’ve only ever seen the test results come back saying positive or negative to patients, not the particular breakdown of strain.

Absolutely no idea if it was new strain - just they are in the fastest growing area where schools were overrun with it last couple of weeks and government/council/school were blaming it all on new strain. Cases were rising at incredible rate. No test to confirm this. My query applies the same whether new strain or not - just I thought it was confirmed that children were not seriously ill with previous strain unless they had health issues. Happy to stand corrected.

Majority of children I know who had it recently has been a relatively mild experience (tired, sick, fever, sore throat etc), but the parents get it worse.

I've read a few times the South African strain is thought to affect younger people more and make the illness more severe but it seems there's no definite answers yet.

Op there are indications, and also how it's framed, people are writing about higher viral loads...

We just need plain English, will my child get sicker or not.

The problem is we do not know so how can they force dc back until we can get a handle on that.

I think the whole thing about this new strain and children is not true. However if the kids attend school in Jan we will soon find out!

The fact it’s even spreading faster among kids is a disaster. The closest answer I have for you on this is referencing this thread which explains how:

A strain with higher transmission is far worse than a strain with higher mortality (or morbidity):

twitter.com/adamjkucharski/status/1343567425107881986?s=21

However, I don’t think we will be given an honest answer on this because it doesn’t fit with government narrative that “THERE’S NOTHING TO SEE IN SCHOOLS, NOTHING... BECAUSE IF THERE WAS THEN WE’D HAVE TO CLOSE THEM AND THAT WOULD EXPOSE THE FACT THAT WE’VE DONE SOD ALL TO MANAGE SCHOOL CLOSURES BETTER”. So ours won’t be going back in January.

The only way to keep schools open is to have no cases. Open them, and they will close as soon as they have cases which then means no provision for key worker and vulnerable children.

“Keeping schools open” is simply a physical impossibility with rates the way they are. They’ll close anyway.

@Littleyell and I think the whole thing about the world being round is not true

33EagleFlight

Kitcat122

I have 4 children. One had no symptoms the other three were ill. One not hospitalised but very very unwell. Enough for me to be quite worried for 2 weeks.

How was it confirmed that they had the new strain? I’ve only ever seen the test results come back saying positive or negative to patients, not the particular breakdown of strain.

It wasn't the new strain we were ill months ago. Just pointing out children do get ill with it.

I've just done some maths on the number of hospital admissions age 6-17 vs the number of positive tests for 5-14 (i know they don't match, the data sets don't) and up until Dec 21, there is no increase in the % of diagnosed being hospitalised - in fact its ever so slightly down from the start of Dec. So so far it seems there is little evidence from admissions that they are being hit harder.

The strain doesn't cause a different virus or a different outcome it is just spreading much more easily which means there is a real risk there will not be enough beds/equipment in hospitals to test the %age that get seriously ill and need hospital treatment.

Some people DC or adults will get very unwell some will be mildly unwell some will have no symptoms that hasn't changed.

Children just as unwell whichever strain. Children do get symptoms and can be very I'll just like everyone else.