Fifteen-year-old Will Grogan had no memory of ever seeing his biology classwork before. What made that distressing was that he had apparently been answering questions about it in class just the day before.

Unfortunately for Will, the cognitive blip was only one of many such incidents he’s experienced since contracting COVID-19 in October 2020. What’s worse is that he’s not alone. Many young people across the country are struggling with physical, neurological, and psychological symptoms either left over from or aggravated by their acute infections.

Pediatric COVID-19 cases have risen sharply with the spread of the virus’ Delta variant. This is of special concern, given that less than half of 12- to 17-year-olds in the U.S. are fully vaccinated, and younger children are not yet eligible for that protection. As with adults, even children and adolescents whose initial infections are mild or asymptomatic can go on to develop chronic issues from long COVID that are disruptive and even debilitating.

Data concerning children affected by long COVID are scarce, and what we do have varies widely. At a congressional hearing in April, NIH director Francis Collins cited a study projecting that between 11% and 15% of youths with COVID-19 could experience these long-term symptoms with consequences affecting their school work, social relationships, and extracurricular activities which, he said, “can be pretty devastating.”

*Belluck, P. (2021, Aug. 8). ‘This Is Really Scary’: Kids Struggle With Long Covid. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/08/health/long-covid-kids.html?referringSource=articleShare

Much about the novel coronavirus, i.e., COVID-19, is still not fully understood. As research progresses and our knowledge of the virus increases, information can change rapidly. We strive to update all of our articles as quickly as possible, but there may occasionally be some lag between scientific developments and our revisions.