Long COVID is a pernicious problem—afflicting people who have contracted COVID-19 with a range of symptoms that can last weeks, months, or years after their initial infection. About one in five adults who contract COVID-19 will go on to develop Long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But what about kids? That has been a lingering question, one that researchers have only begun to explore in depth—and at last, there are some answers.
As my colleague Jamie Ducharme reports, it wasn’t until earlier this year that investigators even established a definition for pediatric Long COVID. According to the experts, that definition is: one or more COVID-19-related symptoms that last at least 12 weeks after infection, affect daily life, and can’t be explained by an alternate diagnosis.
Kids don’t appear to be a whole lot different from adults when it comes to how common the problem is. One meta-analysis—based on 21 previous studies—published in June in Scientific Reports found that 25% of kids had COVID-19-related symptoms at least four weeks after their initial infection. Another study, published on Aug. 12 in the journal Pediatrics, looked at several hundred children who had been sick enough to be hospitalized for COVID-19 and found that 25% had some kind of health issues related to the infection two to four months later.
The precise symptoms of Long COVID in children also aren't all that different from those in adults. The study in Scientific Reports found that the three most common symptoms are mood issues, fatigue, and sleep disorders. Other symptoms include memory loss, nasal congestion, headaches, and inability to exercise.
This month, the CDC took a deeper dive into the question of symptoms, looking at a sample group of more than 3 million children—about 780,000 of whom previously had COVID-19. The children who had been infected were at increased risk of additional Long COVID symptoms, including disturbances in the ability to smell or taste, circulatory problems, malaise, and pain.
As for which kids are most likely to develop Long COVID, one Russian study published in the European Respiratory Journal found that those with allergic diseases—such as asthma, food allergies, and eczema—were at increased risk. The researchers who authored the Scientific Reports paper found additional risk factors, including obesity, older age, and gender—with girls likelier to develop Long COVID than boys.
There is no way to prevent Long COVID in kids entirely but—ever and always—vaccines help. Vaccinated kids who do get COVID-19 are thought to be at lower risk of developing Long COVID later.
More than 590.3 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 6.4 million people have died. On Aug. 14, there were nearly 458,000 new cases and 891 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending, in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 10 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded nearly 93 million million coronavirus cases as of 1 a.m. E.T. today. More than 1.03 million people have died. On Aug. 14, there were 7,354 new cases reported in the U.S., and four deaths were confirmed.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Aug. 15. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
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WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Health authorities in the U.K. today became the first to authorize Moderna’s bivalent booster shot, designed to protect against both the original version of SARS-CoV-2 and the Omicron BA.1 variant. In July, the U.K. government announced a booster campaign that will begin in the fall for all people 50 and older, but did not say today whether the new Moderna shot would be part of the drive. Late last week, Germany’s health minister said the country might clear the new shot next month. The U.S. has been silent so far on the new formulation, but in June the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told drug makers that any new booster shots would have to include protection against the latest Omicron variants.
A common vaccine used to prevent tuberculosis might also help protect against COVID-19, reports the Wall Street Journal. The findings, published in the journalCell Reports Medicine, come from research in which investigators were studying whether the vaccine, known as BCG, could help treat people suffering from Type 1 diabetes by neutralizing harmful immune system cells that attack the pancreas. But the researchers also noticed that 15 months into the study, six of 48 subjects who received a BCG placebo contracted COVID-19, while only one in a group of 96 who got the actual vaccine came down with the disease. The researchers said the shot may work not by targeting SAS-CoV-2 directly, but by boosting the immune system’s response to viruses overall.
Japan’s economy has bounced back after an easing of COVID-19 restrictions that helped keep infection rates low but stifled economic growth, reports the New York Times. The economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.2% in the second quarter of the year, figures released today show, after 0% growth in the first quarter, when the spread of the Omicron variant kept consumers at home. Still, the Japanese economy faces continuing challenges from COVID-19 lockdowns in nearby China, with pandemic restrictions there making it hard for retailers in Japan to import in-demand goods and manufacturers to import necessary parts.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Angela Haupt.
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