"Children can become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, but kids younger than 18 generally have fewer and less severe symptoms than adults, and many experience no symptoms at all according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Less than 2% of confirmed cases have been diagnosed in children, and a report this week in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. suggests they may be less susceptible than adults because the cells in their nasal cavities produce fewer of the receptors that the coronavirus needs to begin its assault.
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However, in the past few weeks doctors in the U.S. and Europe have discovered that among a small percentage of kids, the coronavirus can trigger a rare but serious inflammatory response up to three weeks after the initial viral infection is over. Health officials are calling it multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C."
metmike: They don't know that COVID is triggering this in many of the cases. Some never tested positive for COVID. Some assume that they were exposed to COVID and that triggered it, without actually testing positive for antibodies..........but they don't know.
How about many of these kids are getting it independent of COVID?
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/86393
Kawasaki disease has long been believed to be an immune response triggered by infection, but its etiology is still not clear and not all viruses predispose to Kawasaki disease, Thacker noted.
And despite the chronological connection between COVID-19 and these cases, "at present, there is no definitive evidence that COVID-19-induced shock is related to Kawasaki disease," cautioned Anne Rowley, MD, an infectious diseases specialist studying Kawasaki disease at Northwestern University in Chicago.
"Some clinical symptoms of both these disorders -- Kawasaki disease and COVID-19 -- such as fever, rash and eye redness (conjunctival injection) are present in many childhood illnesses. However, the laboratory testing of these two groups of children seems quite different, and in particular, the children with COVID-19 infection have inflammation of the heart muscle rather than the characteristic swelling of the coronary arteries that is observed with Kawasaki disease."
"His group has seen fewer cases at its Kawasaki Disease Clinic during the pandemic than normally expected over the same period."
metmike: Whoa! KD cases are actually lower than average there! Nobody reports that. Instead, every case is now treated as potentially being the result of COVID. Maybe some of them are from COVID, I can't know but the public, now has this fear that their child is much more likely to get KD when these facts/stats show the occurrence is actually LOWER during the pandemic in that area.........so their child might actually be LESS likely to get it. I did not see 1 headline that reported KD cases lower anywhere. Keep in mind where this guy is from: "Kawasaki Disease Clinic" I will go by his quotes over anything else I read or hear.
His statement represented the facts/data of actual cases.