Long covid rare in children

[Bobholll]

Contrary to mumsnet, where long covid is RIFE in children & everyone knows at least 5 who can’t get out of bed, a new study is showing that it’s thankfully rare & most children recover in a week.

The professor also mentions that most those with on-going symptoms recovered over time.

Nice to see they are keeping an eye statistically on this stuff & that it’s very reassuring.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58071898

@BewareTheLibrarians

Indeed. So many on mn either have it or have children with it, some exaggeration perhaps 🤔

Oh and there it fucking is again. Beautifully timed example. Do you say that to cancer patients as well @TheTallOakTrees or do you just save your disbelief for covid? Pathetic.

No just going with the consultants and paediatric experts who gently say in their interviews it's not that common.

I imagine having parents going on and on about covid with their own anxiety doesn't help children at all.

@Actonsqirrel that's an interesting comment from a consultant but surely it depends what theor symptoms are to which consultant they are sent to? Long Covid clinics comprise of Cardiology, Thoracic, respiratory, Neurology, plus many more. Surely one consultant cannot decide "nothing is wrong.

@AlecTrevelyan006

Post viral fatigue is a well known phenomenon - I don’t think rebadging it as long Covid does anyone any favours

Exactly.

Setting up straw man positions to attack is very unhelpful.

Sorry to jump on your reply to someone else @TheTallOakTrees but the physical symptoms my son has been left without absolutely cannot be explained away as anxiety, if that’s what you’re trying to suggest. If you knew the symptoms you’d know how ridiculous that sounds. Obviously you don’t, which is how you can be so dismissive about it.

But it’s interesting how many people are desperate to blame it on anxiety/parent’s anxiety/people exaggerating. Why are you so scared of it? I’ve lived with it (vicariously) for over a year and I’m not scared of it. Exhausted, yes, fed up, definitely, but not scared. What do you get out of this denial?

my son has been left with*
Ok exhausted, fed up and unable to type

So it’s 2% of children who developed symptoms.
Not all children who got Covid

Don't spoil it, HelloMissus

And again, is this based on self reporting (or rather, by parents) or something more rigorous?

And again, is this based on self reporting (or rather, by parents) or something more rigorous?

Study by Kings London and the RCPCH - not 100% clear from BBC account, but seems to be based on paediatricians' accounts

As far as I can see @Puzzledandpissedoff it’s parents reporting for their kids via the Zoe app. I recorded ds’s symptoms for the first 6 months then tailed off as I was back at work and busy and didn’t really see the point. So to all intents and purposes, on the app data, it would look like he got magically better. Except he didn’t, I just stopped filling in the multi-page quite repetitive questionnaire. Oops.

I would have thought that our visits to to the gp and his consultant would be recorded more thoroughly, but where and how that data is organised, I don’t know. #helpful

So that's two different theories?

I get that paediatricians may have "reported" this, but the question for me is who reported it to them? Have they actually reviewed all of these children themselves, or are they also taking it from the self-reported figures?

Hold on.. someone help me with the maths/logic here… from the BBC article:

The study looked at 1,734 children, aged between five and 17, who were reported to have developed symptoms and tested positive for Covid between September 2020 and February 2021.

Only 1734 children, based on children who tested positive between Sep 2020 and Feb 21.

They haven’t yet got data for a full year. That’s surprising, given the app has been around a lot longer than that. They’re basing it on a small sample of children, over a relatively short period of time. Depending on when they stopped collecting the data, it could be even shorter - did it end this month, or February? If February, they’ve only got 5 months of data to work with. If this month, not all of the participants would have been infected in the first few months, so you got children who may well have got ill in December/January/February, but hadn’t “finished” being ill at the end of the study.

Anyway. If it had a larger amount of subjects over a longer time period, I’d think it was great news. As it’s smaller/shorter, I’ll just think it’s mildly relieving.

Full text here www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(21)00198-X/fulltext

looks like "proxy-reporting" was used

@Puzzledandpissedoff it’s pretty prominent in the article:

“It used data provided by parents or carers to the UK Zoe Covid Study app.”

(Separate point and unrelated to this study, but ds’s consultant doesn’t really rely on much reported by me - more on blood test results (esp inflammatory markers) physical examinations and scan results. Possibly he might be noting how fatigued ds reports feeling, but everything else is “medical”.)

Ah, fair enough; thanks for clarifying that it really is based on proxy reports ...

@Puzzledandpissedoff I mean it’s right there in the article but you’re welcome?

I’m assuming you’re thinking that “proxy reports” means it’s unreliable/over exaggerated? Trust me, parents of kids who are going through this and would like more clarity/reassurance are just as frustrated by the lack of rigorous study into this. Relying on self reporting leaves it wide open to all the rude idiots who think it’s all in our heads. And magically our children’s bodies, via… our heads 🤪

I’m assuming you’re thinking that “proxy reports” means it’s unreliable/over exaggerated?

Not necessarily; it's simply that I'd like to see a little more rigour in the "research"

FWIW I fully accept that most parents will act from excellent motives, but that still leaves plenty - few of them fully trained medics, after all - who in fairness can't be expected to diagnose a complex condition

proxy-reporting is the term used in the appendix of the original paper to which I linked.

FWIW I fully accept that most parents will act from excellent motives, but that still leaves plenty - few of them fully trained medics, after all - who in fairness can't be expected to diagnose a complex condition

Well exactly. That’s why I rely on the gp and/or consultant to work out what’s actually going on and what help ds needs. I wouldn’t have a clue! And I also like to reassure people (who think the doctor squints at him from a distance and diagnoses long covid for a bit of a laugh) that when he does have flare ups, they try to rule out anything else before thinking covid. Hence all the blood tests, swabs, scans.

And hence why, while proxy reporting can be useful for assessing the scale of a problem, the “real” data needs to come from gps/consultants etc. I think that would also be reassuring for people who think it’s a bigger problem than it is. And hopefully lead to better (or any!) treatment for people who are still affected by long covid/cfs/me/other post viral conditions.

Thanks @herecomesthsun I googled it after I wrote the post. Possibly should have checked before

If a death rate of less than 2% is disastrous for healthcare systems during a pandemic due to the sheer numbers of people getting the virus at the same time, I don’t think 2% of children getting long covid during a pandemic and being refused vaccination whilst the pandemic is still very much ongoing, is particularly good news. That’s an awful lot of children in terms of sheer numbers who will be getting long covid all at the same time.

Proxy reporting doesn’t mean it isn’t real, it’s just a term. If asked, I’d say I am breathless when I exert myself but an actual medical assessment would give much more detail from a physiological perspective. I don’t think people disbelieve reported symptoms.

@Walkaround

If a death rate of less than 2% is disastrous for healthcare systems during a pandemic due to the sheer numbers of people getting the virus at the same time, I don’t think 2% of children getting long covid during a pandemic and being refused vaccination whilst the pandemic is still very much ongoing, is particularly good news. That’s an awful lot of children in terms of sheer numbers who will be getting long covid all at the same time.

Link to article that shows that 2% of children that have had covid get long covid.

this? www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(21)00198-X/fulltext

@TheTallOakTrees - basing that on the OP’s definition of long covid via the link she posted. She thinks it’s good news. I don’t think a teenager taking GCSEs or A-levels would think being ill for more than 8 weeks is good news.

@TheTallOakTrees

You know some have long covid with just a diminished smell a few weeks later. Any lasting effects count doesn't have to be major effects at all to qualify as long covid

I don't think it's that simple, the recent studies indicates the loss of smell is related to brain issues. You wouldn't want brain inflammation in your children if avoidable?