At least five US hospitals have started long-term pediatric clinics to help children with delays Covid-19 disease as the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention include a massive, nationwide long-distance study of COVID that includes children.
While many children not experiencing serious COVID-19 diseases, the coronavirus can have a lasting and serious impact on their health.
At the request of CBS News, one hospital in Omaha documented how it was trying to help a girl struggling with the long-term effects of the virus.
Twelve-year-old Piper Sibert has been struggling with extreme fatigue for the past two months. She went to the Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha to build up her endurance.
Nowadays when she has to run, it is in rehabilitation, to the encouragement of medical staff who encourage her.
“It’s scary because you do not know if you’re going to do something that could stop you breathing,” Piper told CBS News’ David Begnaud. “It’s just a kind of pressure. It almost feels like someone’s sitting on your chest.”
Piper’s mother, Sarah, said her husband tested positive for the virus in November, but no one else in the family became ill. One day in February, Piper is then sent home from school.
“Just went from a very active child to very sluggish, exhausted,” Sarah Sibert said. “We took an antibody test and it proved that Piper did have COVID at some point, but we do not know exactly when it was.”
Dr Jean Ballweg, who runs the clinic for long-term vehicles for children, said these young patients were not showing the signs she was expecting. The clinic treats about 10 patients like Piper every Friday.
“I think most of us would have expected that the symptomatic children with acute COVID were the ones who would have symptoms for months, and that’s just not what we see,” she said.
And patients like Piper have a long way to go in recovery.
“I’m frustrated because there is no cure for it and that it could make something go away,” Piper said. “I can’t do the things I love and want to do.”
Long-distance COVID also differs from another pediatric condition associated with the virus, Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome of children. The latter disease is associated with high fever, rash and abdominal pain.
Nearly one in five COVID-19 cases in the last week of March was among children under 18.
Health experts say the coronavirus variant, first discovered in England, is causing an increase in coronavirus cases in several states.
The director of the National Institutes of Health said it is probably 70% more contagious and significantly more deadly, even for young people.
Dr. However, Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University of Public Health School, offers optimism in an appearance on “CBS This Morning” Monday.
‘This vaccines is really remarkable, “Jha said.” They seem to hold up very well against all the variants, against the British variant spreading widely, it’s great. Even compared to some of the more difficult variants, it seems to hold up largely. ‘