Study: Infants, Toddlers, & Schoolkids May All Present Different Long COVID Symptoms

In some ways, it feels as though COVID has been a part of our lives forever. But in fact it’s only (“only”) been five years. While those years have been long indeed, in terms of scientific research and discovery, it’s the proverbial blink of an eye compared to our research on more established diseases, like tuberculosis or malaria. As such, there’s a lot we don’t know, including how COVID and long COVID affect young children.

For years now, doctors and scientists have operated under the assumption that very young children — infants, toddlers, and preschoolers — were less susceptible to symptoms of long COVID than their older counterparts. But new research, recently published in JAMA Pediatrics, suggests that is not the case, though lingering symptoms do look different depending on age, suggesting that long COVID in children must be considered under different criteria based on age.

The study was led by Rachel Gross at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and looked at more than 1,000 children — 472 infants and toddlers and 539 preschoolers — across 30 health care and community settings.

Overall, 41% of infants and toddlers and 45% of preschoolers who’d had COVID had at least 1 prolonged symptom, defined as lasting more than 4 weeks at the time their parents were surveyed (researchers relied on parent and caregiver reporting, as babies are notoriously not good at explaining their symptoms to doctors). Of those, 14% of infants and toddlers and 15% of preschoolers probably had long COVID.

But presentation of the illness looked different among age groups. Infants and toddlers were most likely to present with poor appetite, trouble sleeping, cough (wet and dry), and stuffy nose. Preschoolers were more inclined toward fatigue and dry cough. More established research suggests school-aged children with long COVID present differently — primarily via headache, brain fog, trouble sleeping, and stomach pain — and teenagers, who are more likely to present with fatigue, body aches, headaches, and brain fog.

In an interview with Medscape, Dr. Tanayott Thaweethai, a co-author on the study, highlighted the importance of vaccination in young children, even as the FDA has changed its policy on recommending vaccination for everyone six months and older.

“There are essentially no treatments for long COVID, and vaccination can prevent COVID,” he said. “Therefore, it’s one of our only tools for preventing long COVID.”