COVID pandemic kid with a mask on holding teddy bear

‘Almost all the kids are treatable’: What parents should know about new COVID-related inflammatory disease.

This article about COVID-19 was originally published by USA Today.

Parents already overwhelmed by the challenges of raising kids amid a global pandemic now have something else to worry about: a mysterious inflammatory disease most evident in New York – the nation’s coronavirus epicenter – but also popping up elsewhere.

It’s too early to tell how big a concern it will become, but the illness came up during a Senate hearing Tuesday when Dr. Anthony Fauci of the White House coronavirus task force warned against rushing to reopen schools in the fall. He referenced “children presenting with COVID-19 who actually have a very strange inflammatory syndrome, very similar to Kawasaki syndrome.”

“I think we better be careful if we are not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects (of the virus).’’

Doctors are calling the new ailment pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, and it shares some traits with Kawasaki, which typically afflicts children under 5 years old. Their common symptoms: prolonged fever, a rash, conjunctivitis, swelling of the palms or soles of the feet, sometimes peeling of the skin in those areas and lymph node enlargement.

Is there a link? More kids fall ill to mysterious Kawasaki-like disease as officials test for coronavirus

On Tuesday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state is investigating about 100 possible cases of the new disease, which has killed at least three and has also been spotted in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area (suspected), Chicago, Britain and Spain.

Dr. Charles Schleien, chair of pediatrics at Northwell Health in New York, said his hospital has seen about 40 cases since mid-April and the majority showed antibodies similar to the coronavirus, meaning they had been infected, but had no symptoms of COVID-19. Several others tested positive for the virus and didn’t have symptoms either. Though a causal connection between the virus and the new illness has yet to be proven, “The relationship seems pretty strong,’’ Schleien said.

“First of all, we never see these many kids with Kawasaki. Usually we’ll see a few kids a year. We won’t see three dozen over a period of a few weeks. So, given the numbers and given the fact it’s not acting exactly like Kawasaki, it looks like it’s probably a post-COVID-19 infection inflammatory disease.’’