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- Researchers are just beginning to learn how early symptoms of COVID-19 and seasonal flu can differentiate in children.
- With the flu season expected to start in October, parents could soon try to figure out whether a sick child has the flu or COVID-19, which could require a quarantine or doctor’s visit.
- Experts emphasize that it is more important than ever to get a flu shot during the pandemic.
Flu season is on its way, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Both diseases have similar symptoms, which means that it can be difficult to distinguish one from the other.
Researchers are just beginning to learn how early symptoms of COVID-19 and seasonal flu can differentiate in children.
New research published in
The researchers were surprised to learn that more people with COVID-19 than with the flu reported fever, cough, diarrhea, vomiting, headache, body ache, or chest pain when they were diagnosed.
With the flu season expected to start in October, parents could soon try to figure out whether a sick child has seasonal flu or signs of COVID-19 that could require quarantine or a trip to the doctor’s office.
Here’s what to look for when trying to decide if a child has the flu or COVID-19.
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“While COVID-19 and influenza viruses are believed to spread similarly, COVID-19 is more contagious among certain populations and age groups than influenza,” the organization states.
The report found that the time it takes for symptoms to appear between exposure and an infection, as well as how long the virus spreads, differs between the flu and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
“COVID-19 has been observed to have more spread events than the flu. This means that the virus that causes COVID-19 can spread quickly and easily to many people and result in a continuous spread between people as time passes, ”according to the CDC website.
“As pediatricians, we are concerned that the actual impact of COVID on children is yet to be defined,” said Dr. Flor M. Munoz-Rivas, associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine.
Experts are emphatic that the impact of COVID-19 on children should not be minimized or based on data when children were protected at home, did not go to school and were not exposed to other people or viruses.
“This winter season will give us the opportunity to evaluate this impact. This is because although social distancing and other COVID control measures are still in place, the general population is returning to more ‘normal’ activities and control measures are not applied consistently, ”Muñoz-Rivas said.
Muñoz-Rivas added that we do not know what will happen if we see widespread cases of influenza and COVID-19 this fall and winter.
As part of the study, the researchers looked at 315 patients at the hospital who were diagnosed with COVID-19 between March 25, 2020 and May 15, 2020.
They compared the information with 1,402 children who were diagnosed with flu between October 1, 2019 and June 6, 2020. Children who were asymptomatic but positive for COVID-19 were not included in the cohort.
Of the COVID-19 cohort, 17.1 percent were hospitalized, 5.7 percent were admitted to the ICU, and 3.2 percent received ventilators. Of the children with the flu, 21.2 percent were hospitalized, 7 percent were admitted to the ICU, and 1.9 percent received ventilators.
Hospitalized COVID-19 patients had a mean age of 9.7 years, while those with the flu had a mean age of 4.2 years.
Fever was the most frequent symptom, followed by cough. More children with COVID-19 had a fever and cough compared to those with the flu.
A higher percentage of people with COVID-19 reported symptoms including:
- Diarrhea
- throwing up
- headache
- body pain
- chest pain
There was no statistically significant difference in the children who reported congestion, sore throat, or shortness of breath.
As the number of flu cases at the hospital declined when schools closed during March, Dr. Xiaoyan Song, lead study author and director of Infection Control / Epidemiology at Children’s National Hospital, wants to analyze the effects of the closure. of schools in the spread of COVID-19. .
“We want to assess the quantitative impact of school closings to be able to determine at what point the cost of closing schools and staying at home outweighs the benefit of reducing COVID-19 transmission and burdens on the healthcare system,” he said.
Another problem for parents is the fact that COVID-19 and the flu can occur at the same time, the CDC stated.
“The symptoms of COVID-19 and influenza are very similar, and as this study shows, there are few differences in presentation,” said Dr. Nathaniel Beers, president of the HSC Health Care System and pediatrician at Children’s National Medical Center. who was not affiliated with the investigation.
“Parents should contact their pediatrician if their child has a fever, cough, vomiting or diarrhea, or a sore throat to determine if they should be tested for COVID-19 and if they should also be tested for influenza,” he said.
Children can have a fever from many other causes, so parents should not think that COVID-19 is the only culprit, Muñoz-Rivas said.
“Call your doctor when children have a fever, cough, sore throat, or any type of difficulty breathing, eating, or sleeping,” Muñoz-Rivas said. “Clinicians should assess symptomatic patients for both flu and COVID if they are in an area where COVID is still prevalent, and follow local surveillance information for flu.”
Both flu and COVID-19 can cause serious illness in children, emphasized Dr. Sonja Rasmussen, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Florida (UFHealth).
“We have all heard that COVID-19 is milder in children than in adults, but that does not mean that it cannot cause serious illness in some children,” he said, adding that children have died from it.
It is important that parents do everything possible to avoid these diseases.
For the flu, that means getting a flu shot. Until a COVID-19 vaccine is available, wear masks, wash your hands and practice social distancing, Rasmussen added.
But even after getting a vaccine, parents should remember that children can still end up with the flu this winter.
“While the flu vaccine decreases the chance of getting the flu and reduces complications, and of course, if you have the flu, it is not 100 percent effective in preventing flu. Therefore, pediatricians will likely need to test for both [diseases] even in those who have been vaccinated against the flu, ”said Beers.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) also reminds parents that getting the flu vaccine could be critical this year.
“Make sure your child gets the flu shot, ideally by the end of October or earlier. This is more important than ever in this flu season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ”the website states.
The website also says that children who have COVID-19 who were not previously vaccinated against the flu can still receive a flu vaccine once the symptoms of COVID-19 disappear.
Shortly before the study was published, an AAP report noted a 16 percent increase in children’s cases within 2 weeks during late August and early September.
There have been at least 549,000 pediatric cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic in the United States.
“As we continue to see communities with significant numbers of COVID-19, we will continue to see cases in children,” explained Beers.
“The good news is that our testing capacity has increased in many areas, so children actually get tested so that we can learn more about the burden of disease in children and the spread between children and others.” Beers added.
