Invite me out for coffee. Please

Re:Invite me out for coffee. Please by stolenmerch on Sunday September 05, 2021 @03:35PM (#28427095)

Most studies I've seen show "long covid" to be pretty rare in children. Perhaps something like 5% of children who test positive have mild symptoms a month later. [1] This is somewhat consistent with other respiratory virus infections we've known about. [2] It's possible our risk tolerance is way different but this is personally an acceptable number for me not to worry about my own child.

[1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/08/long-cov...

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31718695/

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Re:Invite me out for coffee. Please by murgindrag on Sunday September 05, 2021 @04:30PM (#28427490)

I don't think this represents most studies, but the far lower end. If we're going to cherry-pick, here's one which shows more than half of kids show at least one symptom 120 days out:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.23.21250375v...

My best guess is that it's around 10%-20% -- that's sort of in the middle where studies land.

I suspect a big part of the problem is which child and which COVID. I would speculate alpha, delta, mu, etc. all have different rates.

I think the second question is the distribution of symptoms. None of the studies are sensitive enough to pick up a 5% loss in IQ, lung capacity, or similar. Do some kids get it and others don't? Or is there a bell curve of symptoms, and we're picking up kids with the more extreme versions?

If it's a bell curve, it's pretty scary. All kids could be harmed to the level of e.g. lead exposure, and we wouldn't notice.

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