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Tag: children

School mask mandates again? Why some experts believe it’s a good idea

“Children are not going to wear masks unless there’s a mask mandate, because we saw how quickly kids stopped wearing masks when they didn’t have to. The peer pressure that affects children in school, it’s really extraordinary. We’re still going to need to make it a rule for children and young adults to wear masks in school.”

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Long COVID is debilitating children. Doctors worry there aren’t enough centers to treat them

Last month, the National Institutes of Health updated its considerations for long COVID to say the burden of the condition in children “may be quite large.” Studies estimating its prevalence in pediatric populations are limited and conflicting, estimating up to 25% of children infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus could go on to develop long COVID, though it’s more likely between 2% and 10%. Older children with existing chronic diseases or who had a more severe COVID-19 infection have an increased risk.

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Dozens sign open letter urging ‘safe return to school’ amid respiratory illness concerns

With students returning to B.C. classrooms in four weeks, an open letter to the province is outlining five things the signatories say must be addressed to ensure “a safe return to school.”

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Study: 1 in 6 kids have persistent COVID symptoms for 3 months after infection

It was thought at first that the pediatric population was relatively spared from the long-term effects of COVID-19 after infection. But this changed rapidly with increasing reports and studies of pediatric patients not fully recovering from acute COVID-19.

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Long COVID Is Disabling Kids. Why We Ignore It

Yet we may have disastrously underestimated one of the most serious sequelae: infection of the brain and nervous system. And we may have missed the neurological damage done to children and young adults who seem to have recovered from COVID-19.

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Parents ask Ottawa’s largest school board to monitor air quality

As children are on the list of those most affected by wildfire smoke, some parents are concerned about sending their kids to school due to poor air quality.

During Tuesday night’s Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) budget meeting, Ecology Ottawa Board Chair Katie Gibbs requested that funds go to ensure better ventilation in schools.

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More than 70% of US household COVID spread started with a child, study suggests

According to a recent study, over 70% of nearly 850,000 US household COVID-19 transmissions originated with a child. The researchers concluded that children had an important role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2, and that in-person school also resulted in substantial spread.

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Over 10% of children in Japan with COVID-related brain disease died, survey finds

More than 10% of children in Japan who developed acute brain syndrome after infection with COVID-19 have died, results of a nationwide survey recently announced by a health ministry research team has shown.

The survey identified 34 cases of acute encephalopathy associated with COVID-19 infection among those under 18 between January 2020 and May 2022. The team analyzed 31 patients who did not have any underlying illnesses that could be responsible for causing the brain disease.

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Opinion: Treating kids as invulnerable is treating them as disposable

Are we OK with children being hospitalized for infectious diseases at far higher rates, as they have recently been? Are we fine with COVID being the No. 1 cause of infectious disease-driven death in children? Also, what if there is a number of reinfections at which average outcomes really start to worsen?

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COVID-19 is a leading cause of death in children and young people in the US

For the one-year period August 1, 2021, to July 31, 2022, COVID-19 was a leading cause of death in children and young people in the United States, ranking eighth overall.

The researchers believe that vaccines and nonpharmaceutical interventions are needed to limit transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and mitigate severe disease.

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Covid increases risk of grave illness and death in pregnant women – study

Women are more likely to die in pregnancy if they catch Covid, according to researchers, who found the infection raised the risk of a swath of serious illnesses for mothers and their newborns.

Reports throughout the pandemic have highlighted how pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to the virus, with doctors urging women to take up the offer of Covid vaccination to reduce the risk to themselves and their children.

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Opinion: We don’t know what’s causing the tsunami of sick kids, but we’d better figure it out fast

Something concerning is happening to our children. Unlike previous autumns, this year there seem to be far more kids falling ill, and far too many…

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Opinion: Better protecting schools from COVID is within reach

Welcome to the “Live with COVID” era, where living with the virus means not talking about it at all. We’ve been told to pretend it’s over, though those “weird summer colds” and “lingering symptoms” indicate otherwise. Rising case rates, hospitalizations, and deaths. Best Summer Ever 2.0 is ending, which means kids are about to return for their third pandemic September.

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