The deaths of three children in New York of inflammatory complications possibly linked to Covid-19 has prompted Andrew Cuomo, the state’s governor, to warn of “an entirely different chapter” of a disease that had been believed to cause only mild symptoms in children.
The governor reported the first death, of a five-year old boy, on Friday. At his morning press conference on Saturday, Cuomo raised the number of fatalities to three, after the death of a seven-year-old and a teenager.
“The illness has taken the lives of three young New Yorkers,” Cuomo said. “This is new. This is developing.”
State health authorities said last week there have been 73 reported cases in New York of children falling severely ill with a toxic shock-like reaction that displays symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease.
Cuomo said many of the children did not display respiratory symptoms commonly associated with Covid-19 when they were brought to area hospitals, but all of them tested positive either for the virus or its antibodies.
Guardian
So, that's not dispositive of their illness being caused by covid-19, but it could be, and seems likely, considering similar reports.
A 14-year-old boy in the UK also died of the new illness; and several cases in Europe were detailed in a report published in the Lancet. Experts there reported that abdominal pain, gastrointestinal symptoms and cardiac inflammation were common to the cases.
In a press release through the American Heart Association, Dr Jane Newburger, the director of the Kawasaki program at Boston children’s hospital, confirmed that a small number of children developed serious inflammatory syndrome with Covid-19, often leading to hospitalization.
[...]
NBC News found at least 85 such cases in children across the US with a majority in New York state, which has also recorded the highest number of Covid-19 cases in the country.
[...]
Kawasaki disease, which mainly affects children under five, can cause the immune system to go into “overdrive”, causing fever, severe diarrhea, rashes and conjunctivitis. In more severe cases it can inflame the walls of the arteries, affecting bloodflow to the heart and is potentially fatal.
New York City reported on Monday that 15 patients aged between two and 15 had been hospitalized over the past three weeks with the Covid-related syndrome.
Not just schools. Reopening anything now is a risk. Idiots out there protesting and cramming public spaces without masks could end up killing their own children.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
UPDATE 5/15:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued an emergency advisory about a mysterious inflammatory illness believed to be connected to the coronavirus in children.
The CDC asked that health care providers report instances of pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C), a condition health officials say is similar to Kawasaki Disease — a rare illness that causes inflamed blood vessels, typically in young children.
[...]
The illness tends to be severe, with 71 percent of suspected cases being admitted to intensive care units in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Thursday, noting 43 percent of the detected cases remain hospitalized.
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Patients who have MIS-C exhibit fever, laboratory evidence of inflammation, and evidence of current or past COVID-19 infection, among other attributes, according to the case definition laid out by the CDC in the advisory.
The syndrome can affect children and young adults up to 21 years of age.
The Hill
That we know so far.
