‘Rare’ for severe cases in children

Parents should be reassured by a new study which shows the proportion of children who get severe Covid-19 is “rare” and death is “vanishingly rare”, its authors have said.

In the largest study in the world examining children hospitalised with Covid-19, researchers examined the characteristics of youngsters admitted to hospital and those who have severe disease.

They stressed the absolute risk to children being admitted to hospital is “tiny” and the risk of needing critical care is “even tinier”.

While the overall numbers were small, the team were able to identify which children were more likely to need critical care support in hospital – including newborns under the age of one month, children aged 10 to 14, black children and children who are obese.

They were able to identify a “cluster” of symptoms linked to the hyper-inflammatory response to Covid-19 seen in a small number of children – which are slightly different to those currently known in the medical community. Six died in the study, all of whom had “profound comorbidities”.

“Severe disease is rare and death is vanishingly rare,” said Calum Semple, professor of child health and outbreak medicine at Liverpool University.

“They should be confident that their children are not going to be put at direct harm by going back to school and we do know that they are harmed by being kept away from school because of the lack of educational opportunities, and that’s affecting mental health.”

The new study, published in The BMJ, examined data on children and young people admitted to hospital with Covid-19 across England, Wales and Scotland.

There were 651 children admitted to hospital – and of these 42% had another medical condition.

Under one in five (18%) were admitted to critical care during the study period - from the start of the crisis until July 3.

The researchers also examined data on 52 children who showed signs of a hyperinflammatory response to Covid-19.

These youngsters were five times more likely to be admitted to critical care.