Coronavirus in Kids Acts a Lot Like the Flu

With a couple important differences

Welcome to Impact Factor, your weekly dose of commentary on a new medical study. I’m Dr. F. Perry Wilson of the Yale School of Medicine.

“It’s just the flu”. We all heard that sentiment early on in the coronavirus crisis. But statements like that have died down as the death total has gone up. With nearly 200,000 Americans dead from COVID-19, compared to 50–60,000 dead from flu and pneumonia in a bad flu season, it’s pretty clear this ain’t the flu.

At least, for most of us.

But a new study in JAMA Network Open finds that, among kids, Coronavirus is, well, pretty darn flu-like.

Researchers from Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC examined 315 kids with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, and compared them to historical controls — kids with lab-confirmed influenza A and B.