When Will Our Children Get Better?

Samuel (eight years old) has been affected by Long Covid since April 2020. Initially it presented as mild sore throat, headaches, fatigue and various skin rashes. These came and went over a few weeks. He then started with gastro symptoms, which meant he had severe diarrhoea, stomach cramps and vomiting. These episodes left him more fatigued too and causing brain-fog. They have continued ever since and usually recur every three to four weeks. At times the symptoms are intense, other times more manageable. He has experienced a myriad of symptoms and even now new ones occur. However, he can have days and sometimes weeks where he appears to be ‘getting better’ then there will be another flare-up.

A paper based on symptoms and illness duration in symptomatic UK children of school age concludes that children have very low chance of being affected by Long Covid. ‘Children with reporting gaps longer than one week between symptomatic reports were excluded.’ (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.05.21256649v2.full-text)

Many children living with Long Covid can experience a period of wellness and then suffer from a relapse. Therefore, this study is excluding the experience of hundreds of children. Remitting symptoms is common and it is the reality of so many and they never know when they might experience a relapse. Samuel thinks he is improving then will suddenly suffer a relapse. He is just one of many children who had a good state of health before Covid changed their lives. Now they have no idea if they will ever return to their previous state of health.