Can kids get "long COVID" after coronavirus infections?

Yes, but studies indicate they're less likely than adults to be affected by symptoms that persist, recur or begin a month or more after infection.

Estimates vary on how often the symptoms known as long COVID-19 occur in kids. A recently published U.K. study found about 4% of young children and teens had symptoms more than a month after getting infected. Fatigue, headaches and loss of smell were among the most common complaints and most were gone by two months.

Coughing, chest pain and brain fog are among other long-term symptoms sometimes found in kids, and can occur even after mild infections or no initial symptoms.

Some studies have found higher rates of persisting symptoms than in the U.K. study, but kids are thought to be less commonly affected than adults. About 30% of adult COVID-19 patients develop long-term symptoms, according to some estimates.

Experts aren't sure what causes the long-term symptoms. In some cases, it could reflect organ damage caused by the initial infection. Or it could be a result of the virus and inflammation lingering in the body.

Kids can develop other rare problems after an initial coronavirus infection, including heart inflammation or a condition known as multisystem inflammatory syndrome. That involves fever and inflammation affecting different body parts, among other possible symptoms. Affected kids generally need to be hospitalized but most recover. A similar condition can occur in adults.

The rapid spread of the highly contagious delta variant has some doctors worrying about the potential for higher numbers of children being at risk for long COVID-19 and these other conditions.

Because of the potential for long-term consequences, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends follow-up doctor visits after children recover from an initial coronavirus infection.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — COVID-19 cases are surging across the country and the coronavirus is no longer mainly impacting older Americans, but rather, younger.

"In our ICUs, we're seeing younger people intubated who are very sick or who are on the floors and are very sick,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, an infectious diseases professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “That should be a gigantic wake-up call."

Another wake-up call: researchers at Johns Hopkins University just completed their seventh round of COVID-19 case projections. It is something they have worked on since the start of the pandemic.

“What we're trying to do with this is really fill the gap of that longer time span – so, looking out six months,” said Dr. Shaun Truelove of the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub.

The hub fast forwards to what the virus might bring for the country in cases and in deaths by the end of the year.

In the best-case scenario, which is a high vaccination rate coupled with a variant with low transmission, COVID-19 cases only rise by 3 million through the end of the year, along with an additional 32,000 deaths.

Best-case scenario

• Current U.S. COVID-19 cases – 33.6 million
• Jan. 1, 2022 case projection in U.S. – 36.5 million

• Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths – 605,362
• Jan. 1, 2022 death projection in U.S. – 637,984

However, that best-case scenario runs into two problems. First, COVID-19 vaccination rates right now are stagnant.

“The challenge we're seeing now is that vaccination is slowing down because of uptake, issues of hesitancy, people not being willing to get vaccinated,” Dr. Truelove said.

The second problem is the delta variant is highly transmissible and the dominant COVID-19 strain in the U.S. now, accounting for 83% of all cases in the country.

“What we're seeing because of that, and because of this stagnation of vaccination, is that we do expect there to be some resurgence in the fall,” Dr. Truelove said.

In the worst-case scenario researchers looked at, which would include lower vaccination rates and a highly transmissible virus like the Delta variant, COVID-19 cases rise much higher: by more than 7 million through the end of the year. There would also be more than 95,000 additional COVID-19 deaths, which is triple the number of the best-case scenario.

Worst-case scenario

• Current U.S. COVID-19 cases - 33.6 million
• Jan. 1, 2022 case projection in U.S. – 40.8 million

• Current U.S. COVID deaths - 605,362
• Jan. 1, 2022 death projection in U.S. – 700,635

Researchers say what all of this means is the more people who choose to get vaccinated the less likely the worst-case projection – and many more deaths – becomes a reality.

“While these resurgences are not necessarily to the same level that we saw in winter 2021, they are substantial enough to be concerned about and aware of,” Dr. Truelove said.

It’s information that Johns Hopkins researchers hope will reach those who need to hear it.