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After Covid-19, kids have more symptoms but less anxiety

Infected children experienced fewer psychological and social problems than others

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Persistent health problems were only slightly more common in children after Covid-19 than in similarly-aged kids who avoided the virus, researchers from Denmark reported on Wednesday. Anxiety levels, however, were higher in children who never had Covid-19, the researchers also found.

They said 40 per cent of infants and toddlers with Covid-19 and 27 per cent of their uninfected peers experienced at least one symptom for more than two months. Among kids ages 4 to 11, persistent symptoms were seen in 38 per cent with Covid-19 and 34 per cent without it. And among 12- to 14-year-olds, 46 per cent of those with Covid-19 and 41 per cent of those without it had long-lasting symptoms. The results were based on a survey of nearly 11,000 mothers of infected children and nearly 33,000 mothers of uninfected kids.

While symptoms associated with long Covid such as headache, mood swings, abdominal pain and fatigue are often experienced by otherwise healthy children, infected children had longer-lasting symptoms and one-third had new symptoms that developed after Covid-19. To the researchers’ surprise, children who had Covid-19 experienced fewer psychological and social problems than those in the control group. They speculated this may be because the uninfected children had more “fear of the unknown disease and more restricted everyday life due to protecting themselves from catching the virus.”

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