[ad_1]
- As flu season rolls around, researchers are trying to distinguish symptoms to differentiate between seasonal flu and the new coronavirus.
- Children, in particular, tend to have irregular or no coronavirus symptoms, allowing them to transmit the disease without becoming ill.
- A new study found that children with coronavirus showed more symptoms such as fever and digestive upset than those with the flu, but hospitalization rates were roughly the same.
- Experts say we still can’t tell the difference based solely on symptoms.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
As school begins and flu season approaches, research suggests we still don’t know enough about how the new coronavirus affects children to differentiate it from the flu, at least on the basis of symptoms alone.
Children with COVID-19 have many of the same symptoms as those with the flu and are hospitalized at roughly the same rates, according to a retrospective study published Sept. 8 in the JAMA Network Open.
Researchers at Children’s National Hospital analyzed data collected between March and May from 315 children diagnosed with COVID-19 and 1,402 children diagnosed with the flu.
Comparing symptoms, hospitalization rates, and the number of patients needing intensive care and / or ventilators, they found that the children had similar outcomes, regardless of diagnosis.
To her surprise, the symptoms were basically the same, with some minor distinctions. They found that children actually experienced more difficulty breathing from the flu than from COVID-19, and those with COVID-19 experienced digestive symptoms more often.
Flu and coronavirus can have nearly identical symptoms
According to the study, the most common coronavirus symptoms were those generally associated with the flu: fever, cough, digestive problems such as vomiting and diarrhea, body aches, headaches, and chest pain.
More children with coronavirus showed those symptoms than children with the flu: 76% of COVID-19 patients studied had a fever, compared to 55% of flu patients. And more than one in four coronavirus patients (26%) reported vomiting or diarrhea, compared to just 12% of flu patients.
But to the researchers’ surprise, there was no significant difference in rates of shortness of breath between coronavirus and flu patients.
“I didn’t see it coming when I was thinking about doing the study,” Dr. Xiaoyan Song, study co-author and director of Infection Control and Epidemiology at Children’s National, said in a news release. “It took me several rounds of thinking and reviewing the data to convince myself that this was the bottom line.”
Unfortunately, that means researchers don’t yet have an easy way to differentiate the two diseases without testing, Song told Business Insider.
“It is still very difficult to distinguish the two populations solely on the basis of symptoms,” Song said. “From a clinical management perspective, it confirmed our fear that we can’t really analyze the distinction, we really have to rely on diagnostic tests.”
Children have similar flu and COVID-19 results
The researchers found no statistically significant difference in results between the flu and the new coronavirus.
Both resulted in comparable rates of hospitalization: 21% of children with the flu were hospitalized, compared to 17% with COVID-19. They also found similar rates of needed intensive care (7% flu, 5.7% coronavirus) and need for ventilators (1.9% flu, 3.2% coronavirus).
However, children hospitalized with coronavirus infection were more likely to have underlying medical conditions, including neurological conditions such as seizures or developmental delay. That was not the case with the flu.
We still don’t understand the ‘silent spreaders’ of COVID-19
However, an additional complication is asymptomatic cases.
There is evidence that children may be particularly prone to transmitting the coronavirus without even getting sick, based on previous studies.
This study selected COVID-19 patients with no symptoms as there are no comparable data for flu patients, but researchers are currently looking at asymptomatic patients for future studies.
School closings could keep flu season and coronavirus in check, researchers say
The hospital did not see any cases of children with the flu and COVID-19, although it is possible.
Part of the reason for this was that flu cases plummeted in March, one of the last months of the flu season, when schools were closed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
“We saw zero influenza in our hospital. It was unprecedented, it just disappeared,” Song said.
That’s promising evidence that interventions could help delay or even end what we think of as “flu season” weeks earlier than expected.
Next, the team is looking at how to better carry out school closings to reduce the spread of flu and coronavirus, without the social and economic burdens of closing businesses and social contacts.
For now, Song urged everyone to keep their physical distance from others, wear masks, wash their hands, and get a flu shot early.
Read more:
Children with asymptomatic coronavirus cases could spread the virus for weeks, study found
56 cases of coronavirus were linked to a Starbucks in South Korea. But the employees who wore masks were not infected.
Wearing a mask doesn’t lower your oxygen levels, and 6 other mask myths you should stop believing now
