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A boy wears a handmade mask to try to reduce transmission of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

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At first, the belief that COVID-19 doesn't always affect children as severely as it strikes adults came as a welcome relief. Older adults and people with compromised immune systems were at higher risk, but on the whole, kids didn't appear to be as afflicted, or get as sick when they were. At least that was the initial understanding clinicians had of the disease caused by the coronavirus. Now doctors and scientists are rethinking that assumption, after identifying clusters of cases that point to a potentially dangerous syndrome they say is related to COVID-19 in kids, but with a different pathology and sometimes fatal outcomes.

The symptoms vary greatly, as does their severity. Many of these affected children have been admitted into intensive care and placed on life support. Some have reportedly suffered heart damage and other organ failure. The Centers for tử cấm thành bắc kinh Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed at least three children have died, but doctors speculate there are probably more. With clinical symptoms more closely mirroring Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome than the COVID-19 symptoms doctors have come to expect, there's still much the medical community doesn't know about this newly observed disease.





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This brings up some tough questions. What's the disease called and how is it affecting kids? How deadly is it? How is it being treated, and will it delay the reopening of schools? This story draws on available information from sources like the CDC and World Health Organization, and will continue to be updated as new details come to light. It is not intended to serve as medical advice. 

If you're seeking more information about coronavirus testing, here's how to find a testing site near you (you can also use Apple Maps). Here's how to know if you qualify for a test and how to get a hold of an at-home test kit. 








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What's the disease called and how is it linked to the coronavirus?
The CDC and the WHO have dubbed this condition "multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children," (PDF) or MIS-C. It's also been called both "pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome" and "pediatric hyperinflammatory syndrome."

In the early stages of the pandemic, doctors noted that it seemed like fewer children than adults had bad enough COVID-19 symptoms to require a hospital stay. A series of studies soon supported those suspicions. They showed how some kids did get sick, but far less frequently than adults. And it seemed children could definitely spread the disease, but adults spread it faster. Word got around that kids were relatively safe from the worst effects of the virus, and parents breathed a sigh of relief.



Playgrounds across the country closed in an effort to cut down on transmission of the coronavirus.

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In time, however, clusters of unusually dire pediatric cases started to pop up. Most of these kids were testing positive, if not for coronavirus itself then for antibodies that suggested they had been infected at some prior point. But these kids weren't arriving at the hospital with typical COVID-19 complaints. Notably, reports say, although they had fewer respiratory problems than expected, these kids were actually a lot sicker than many adult patients. They were among the first pediatric patients identified (PDF) with this new syndrome.








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The reason experts believe the illness affecting these kids is related to the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease it causes, is because of how many of them tested positive for it. It's true that tests for some of the children with these symptoms came back negative, but doctors pointed to concerns about the accuracy of some COVID-19 tests as a possible explanation for those exceptions. 

Because many of these patients tested positive for antibodies -- meaning they'd contracted the coronavirus possibly several weeks prior -- doctors began to suspect that what was happening wasn't a direct result of the virus itself, but rather some kind of reaction their bodies were having to an infection that had otherwise already cleared up.


What's been happening to kids who are presumed to get COVID-19?
The symptoms reported by patients and doctors vary. Doctors have observed persistent fever, red eyes and skin rash, as well as low blood pressure, inflammation, pale and sometimes blue lips and skin, trouble breathing and lethargy.