100 UK children hospitalised with rare Covid

[Baileysforchristmas]

75% are BAME

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/05/up-to-100-uk-children-a-week-hospitalised-with-rare-post-covid-disease

There will always be those that think it will never ever be safe to open schools, unions in particular have made it very hard. However we are comfortably more knowledgeable than before, and we know how the virus works and children are very rarely affected. We have the vaccines, an infection rate this is plummeting - not to mention the colossal pressure on the government to put children's welfare at the very top of their list of priorities. It will be fine. In a matter of weeks our kids will be returning to life again, and hopefully this will be the last lockdown any of us will have to endure.

@speaksofty

I am also not worried at all, it seems to be sensationalist and scaremongering to me, and I don't believe it myself.

Many of those children sadly no doubt would be in hospital anyway given their health conditions, so although I hope they are all okay and recover soon and sent home, I am not worried at all for my dc or family. Most children are completely fine with covid, and the stats indicate that is the most accurate outcome for kids to date. Almost all will recover or not even have symptoms even if they catch it!

@speaksofty

Many of those children sadly no doubt would be in hospital anyway given their health conditions

But that's not true is it?

Almost four out of five children were previously healthy, according to an unpublished snapshot of cases.

“Unpublished snapshot of cases” doesn’t exactly sound like the most reliable of data to me either though!

@MNnicknameforCVthreads

“Unpublished snapshot of cases” doesn’t exactly sound like the most reliable of data to me either though!

I think that's fair, and probably a reason why the article is so sloppy. But we also shouldn't assume that these children - however relatively small in number - all have underlying conditions either.

Agreed Circum

It’s a sloppy article, which is probably why it’s caused debate as it’s not clear and concise.

We’d do a much better job of it

@MNnicknameforCVthreads

Agreed Circum

It’s a sloppy article, which is probably why it’s caused debate as it’s not clear and concise.

We’d do a much better job of it

With appropriate remuneration, absolutely!

Maybe move this to black mumsnet section. I have found this thread reassuring, maybe others would to.

@Cowmilk

I've popped a thread in the black mumsnet section and linked to this one.

@ThePenIsBlue

🤷‍♀️ I can’t get worked up about it, or worry. Kids have a higher chance of dying in a car accident.

Not sure this is reassuring really, seems a strange take.

I thought it was about 2500 children KSI on the roads per year, which is only 50 per week, which is half the number currently being hospitalised with this. Unless my numbers are wrong, which they could be...

This thread does have a lot of minimisation, as predicted.

100 children hospitalised per week is not good. It doesn't mean we have to panic either, but it is not good at all. This is another impact of the government letting things get so put of control.

Well not really. Because there isn't 100 children every week being admitted. Nowhere near!

Someone (sorry, I can't face it tonight), should really have a proper look at the stats on all this.

1. It's up to 100 per week.
2. 75% are BAME, which is absolutely awful if you're BAME but around 85% of people are white in the UK.
3. If the figure of 2,500 KSI RTAs per year is correct, is that deaths? Or injuries? What about KS2, and KS3, and KS4?
4. Around 37 under 14s are diagnosed with cancer per week on average. Just for context.

100 children hospitalised per week is not good.

You seem quite insistent on continually quoting unreported and unverified numbers.

If only 37 under 14s are diagnosed with cancer per week, that makes up to 100/week being hospitalised with this appear relatively big.

I'm not sure what your point is re. % in BAME children, that makes it worse to me because it is so disproportionate on some and not others.

No the KSI road figures are almost all not deaths.

But we also shouldn't assume that these children - however relatively small in number - all have underlying conditions either

Well no, but even if they did, a lot of underlying conditions in children don't affect their life expectancy or quality of life and surely we shouldn't be effectively saying "well, if they've got underlying conditions them catching covid on top is FINE" which seems to be the tone a lot these days. It's unbelievably awful if that's the society we're becoming.

We should be doing everything we can to minimise exposure of these kids whether they have underlying conditions or not, by - for example -funding schools to be safer.

@InterfectoremVulpes

100 children hospitalised per week is not good.

You seem quite insistent on continually quoting unreported and unverified numbers.

Well they were reported because the thread started with a news report

I am not able to independently verify the figures, but if I read something that isn't good, I don't see why I can't say it's not good.

This is a very poorly written article. In the big London trust where I work, last week we had 17 covid + children but the vast majority were inpatients for other reasons and the C19 positivity was found on routine screening.

@Pomegranatespompom

This is a very poorly written article. In the big London trust where I work, last week we had 17 covid + children but the vast majority were inpatients for other reasons and the C19 positivity was found on routine screening.

These are not covid positive, it is a syndrome that is triggered about four weeks after infection.

It is thought Covid-19 triggers an inflammatory response among a very small minority of children – of all children infected with Covid-19, less than half of one per cent went on to develop PIMS.

Sorry I only skim read . it’s true we have had children with the inflammatory syndrome but very small numbers. I’ll read the article later.

A friend is a children's nurse in a big hospital in the south. They have only had 3 PIMS patients since last March, of the patients with Covid all are in for other things, and covid was picked up. Other illnesses for children have been down this year- they have had hardly any with broncholitis.

Shaun Lintern - the independent health correspondent moved from the trade press (health service journal) to the Independent last year.

I don't know what his background is but he has a good grasp of issues in the health service and understands and reports clearly what medics/ scientists tell him.

No antibiotics for virus nonsense from him!

Well they werereportedbecause the thread started with a news report

But you keep ignoring those pointing out it says UP TO 100 a week, which is not the same as 100 a week.

Although, you are not ignoring it, you are accusing those that point out what has actually been reported as "minimising"

You even went as far as to say it was 100 children being admitted to ICU earlier 🙄

You even went as far as to say it was 100 children being admitted to ICU earlier

Yes, apologies for that - the Independent says only half of them in ICU, the other half HDU/wards.

My view is that this - up to 100 per week - seems quite high.

A diagnosis of PIMS-TS isn't great. The children are unlikely to die and . the treatment has got better so fewer of the kids are picking up issues that are likely to affect them long term (strokes/ aneurysms on their coronary blood vessels)but it's still an unpleasant illness.

However, the risk of getting it is pretty small and has to be weighed up with the risks of ongoing school closures/ lack of socialisation etc.

It isn't clear to me at all if the excess cases seen in the BAME community are because there are genetic risk factors or if these children simply live in households where their risk of exposure to covid is higher eg. parents more likely to work in a role that cannot be done from home

Other data shows that covid is affecting the poorer sections of society disproportionately - that effect may well be being seen here.

The Black report about health inequalities was published in 1982. However successive governments have failed to tackle this issue and things seem to be getting worse not better. It makes me so sad.
I look at the very young children I look after and it just seems unfair that those who are born into an affluent home have so many advantages from the word go - their life expectancy, scholastic attainment etc. will all on average be better than a child born into a less privileged household.

@MNnicknameforCVthreads actually you would be surprised in normal times how quickly children’s hospital beds are filled through autumn/winter and have to find out of area beds. Winter 2019 was particularly bad.

Covid isn’t a cause of this though. Plenty of other viruses cause children to be sick and admitted every year. People just don’t think about it unless it affects them. The covid restrictions and schools being shut, social distancing and less mixing have had an impact the other way. .

you would be surprised in normal times how quickly children’s hospital beds are filled through autumn/winter and have to find out of area beds

Is that because you would more likely tend to err on the side of caution and admit children for observation more frequently than an adult (e.g. an adult would be able to describe symptoms and how they actually feel more readily than a child would?)