Children Risk More Illnesses after Covid

What every pediatrician in the world needs to read - from tern: 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a really bad thing, isn't it?

I wonder what the percentage is after the 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 12th infection?

Here's a really really interesting point in the study: Only a tiny proportion of the kids have a constellation of problems.  The new issues are spread out across all the body's systems: 

"Only 2% of children had two disorders at the same time."

Do you understand the significance of that?

Suppose everyone in a city got viral hepatitis. What would the pediatric doctors see? Thousands of cases of jaundice and liver problems. 

What do they see after all the kids in a city get Covid? Just loads of everything . No one specific condition. Just busy.  

No wonder paeds doctors don't see it. 

There's loads more in the study. Go and have a read:

"We considered eight clinical outcomes of interest: cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, neurological, mental health, musculoskeletal, metabolic, and others.  . . . Overall, children were 78% more likely to develop conditions of interest after Covid-19, including mental health issues and neurological problems."

This is our next generation. 

From resident physician Sujana Reddy:

And just a wee point about worrying about these conditions. There's some backlash from a few people with Long Covid online: From their perspective, actively trying to prevent people from getting Long Covid makes it seem like their lives are not worth living or are less valuable or less desirable. It's a really curious concern that we don't typically hear from people who have suffered longterm problems after an accident, for instance. We never hear anyone suggest we stop any preventions of car accidents because it presents paralysis or head injuries as a bad thing. 

I wonder if, because the condition is still pretty new and the feelings still raw, perhaps there hasn't been time for people to process depression and re-engagement, a cycle that often happens after a loss of functioning of some kind (sight, hearing, paralysis), typically lasting about two years. Many people could still be in a place of fighting any acceptance that their life has some limitations, or, at least, some marked differences from their previous lives, which also benefits from a grieving period. And then I wonder if there's an element of regret involved that people are trying to shake off if they didn't heed warnings, or rage if they did, which can complicate emotional healing from the trauma of losing functioning in some way. 

Whatever the reason for the push to stop slamming LongCovid, my response is this: We can have dramatically reduced capacity to be independently productive in this world and still be equally valuable, absolutely. The excellent film on ME/CFS, Unrest, makes that very clear. But it's also the case that reduced capacity makes life more difficult. For people just barely managing to make enough to feed their family, in our current system, a longterm illness or ongoing effects of an illness can be a tipping point sending the family into homelessness. There are still very good reasons to continue work to prevent SARS-CoV-2 from getting into anyone's bloodstream.

Please wear a mask. If not for yourself, for the little ones!