Protecting Children with Long-Term Conditions during the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Emeritus Professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton, discusses what can be done to protect certain groups of children with long-term health conditions from catching SARS-Cov-2 disease caused by the novel coronavirus COVID-19. Furthermore, it is now being reported that a number of children appear to be reacting to the new coronavirus by developing a multisystem hyperinflammatory state with similar symptoms to that seen in toxic shock syndrome and which necessitates intensive care (Campbell & Sample, 2020).

Key points

• It has been recently reported that a number of children appear to be reacting to the new coronavirus by developing similar symptoms to that seen in toxic shock syndrome.

• The COVID-19 pandemic is a worry for all parents as there are currently no vaccines available to thwart this pneumonic infection now officially known as SARS-CoV‐2.

• Children with long-term health problems such as asthma are particularly at risk from COVID-19 and until such time as a vaccine or anti-viral agent becomes available they remain highly vulnerable.

• The UK Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has produced COVID-19 guidance for parents and they recommend that certain groups of children need to be isolated from others for at least the duration of the virus lockdown.

• London’s Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital has produced a series of child friendly information leaflets about COVID-19 for certain groups of children with long-term conditions.

Acknowledgments

This editorial is dedicated to the memory of children’s nurse Katy Davis, one of my former nursing students, who died at Southampton General Hospital in the UK in April 2020 after contracting COVID-19.