Since COVID-19 hit hard in 2020, there have been massive divides between what was officially known by medical professionals and disease researchers, what was hypothesized, and what the general public witnessed or believed. Regarding kids, researchers didn’t see significant evidence that the virus had the same impact on children as it could on adults, especially older adults, but parents who watched their kids suffer the virus had other thoughts.
As was the case in adults, plenty of kids went through the virus with mild symptoms—in fact, this was much more common in kids than adults—and thought they were fine when it was over. For kids with ‘long COVID,’ though, and their parents, part of the nightmare has been convincing their doctors that the problems were related to the virus.
Now, researchers are confirming what some of these parents have said all along.
What Is Long COVID, Anyway?
“Long COVID” occurs when a patient continues to have symptoms for more than three months after suffering the virus. However, these symptoms may not match those of a classic respiratory illness. They can include loss of the sense of taste, dizziness, muscle aches, fatigue, shortness of breath, and brain fog.
By 2022, the CDC reported that about 7% of adults had suffered or were still suffering long COVID symptoms, some of which did not surface until after the patient had initially recovered from the virus. Researchers believe that long COVID may be caused by the antibodies created in response to the virus attacking otherwise healthy organs after the virus is gone, according to Yale Medicine. Another theory is that viruses that were already in the body but dormant become active after the COVID-19 virus infection.
New Research Finds “Almost Every Organ System” Affected In Kids
Now, researchers have released information from the biggest study yet of long COVID in children. The details include evidence that the virus is the cause of the new symptoms, more information about how long COVID looks different in children than adults, and a horrifying conclusion about how widespread, significant, and severe COVID-19 can be in children.
Rutgers, which participated in the study, says that nearly half (45%) of children ages 6 to 11 who were infected with the virus had at least one long-term symptom, as did more than a third (39%) of children aged 12 to 17. They compared these results with children who did not have a known infection of COVID-19. While some uninfected children also reported long-term symptoms, the difference was significant enough to “implicate the virus as a likely causal factor, rather than just having lived through the pandemic.”
What’s more, they found that these symptoms occurred throughout the body. According to the report:
“Children experienced prolonged symptoms after COVID-19 infection ‘in almost every organ system, with the vast majority having multisystem involvement.’”
Symptoms Vary Significantly By Age
While COVID-19 in children has been wrongly assumed to be less serious in children because of the less severe apparent effects during initial infection, long-term COVID-19 has also flown under the radar because of the difference in symptoms.
For adults, the most common symptoms of long COVID are “post-exertional malaise, brain fog, and gastrointestinal and heart symptoms,” Rutgers explains.
For younger children (the 6-11 age group), the most common long-term symptoms that surfaced were of memory and struggles to focus; stomach pain, and head and neck pain.
Adolescents (the 12-17 age group) reported loss of smell and taste as their most common symptoms, with fatigue, loss of energy, and muscle soreness closely following.
Some Well-Camoflauged Long-Term Symptoms Also Emerged
Some of the other symptoms that have emerged as clearly linked to COVID are struggles that could otherwise be easily written off as standard developmental hurdles if the correlation hadn’t been proven.
Time reports that symptoms in younger children can include the development of phobias, trouble sleeping, and resistance to school attendance. Some children develop rashes or itchiness or have trouble with nausea and dizziness.
Adolescents can also have increased headaches or fatigue after walking and daytime sleepiness.
All of these medical and developmental issues are common enough in children that complaints to a pediatrician or family doctor would have been unlikely to spark questions about the connection to COVID-19 infection — but they can be severely disruptive to the child’s life and his family’s.
“The Kids Were Right”
The organization Long Covid Kids, which has advocated for years for support of kids who say they’re suffering long-term symptoms related to COVID, is cheering this study as evidence that the youngest patients were right all along.
Even in 2020, the organization was sharing stories such as that of an infant who was hospitalized with Paediatric Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome associated with the COVID-19 virus and children who struggled to consume food and complained of not being able to get enough oxygen after recovering.
Back then, they described children as “invisible victims” whose symptoms were being ignored and declared:
“Long Covid Kids will keep sharing stories of babies, children and teenagers until the government recognises that children are just as vulnerable as adults.”
It has taken nearly four full years, but at last, these children and their advocates are vindicated.
The next step, we can hope, is giving them the support and treatment they need.
