Controlled Studies Ease Worries of Widespread Long COVID in Kids: Via Stat.

  • “Over the last two years, experts’ understanding of long COVID in children has deepened. Several peer-reviewed studies now include control groups consisting of children who did not have COVID-19 but who have lived through the same pandemic conditions — loneliness, interrupted schooling, anxiety, tensions at home, the loss of loved ones and the like.These studies indicate that long COVID in children is rare and, when it does occur, is short-lived.”
  • “In one study, 97% of children ages 5 to 11 with COVID-19 recovered completely within four weeks. In the small group that had bothersome symptoms after four weeks (usually loss of smell or fatigue), most had fully recovered by eight weeks.”
  • “Fear has had a strong hold on Americans for more than two years, and it is a hard thing to let go of. But we owe it to children to follow the science: Children are more likely to suffer from pandemic-associated symptoms than from infection-associated symptoms. School policies should reflect this reality.”
  • “Families and school staff need to be given factual, reassuring messaging about the actual risks of COVID-19 to children, put away the masks in most school settings — at least for now — and restore a sense of normalcy to their day-to-day lives.”

Read the full article about long COVID and kids by John Bailey at The 74.