Throughout the pandemic, estimates of American adults experiencing long COVID have varied widely. However, new research confirms that the risk for children, especially those younger than 12 years old, remains rare.
An analysis from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that by the end of last year, only 1.3% of individuals aged 17 and younger had experienced ongoing symptoms after getting COVID-19.
Long COVID refers to the constellation of more than 200 symptoms that can persist for months or even years after a person has even a mild coronavirus infection. These health issues commonly include extreme fatigue, brain fog, heart palpitations, sexual dysfunction and digestive disorders.
Among children aged 12 to 17, the rate of those who ever had long COVID over three months after a positive test or receiving a doctor’s diagnosis of COVID-19 was 2%, while it was 0.8% for ages 6 to 11 and 1% for those under 5 years old. The percentage of the older group still experiencing symptoms is less than 0.8%, while the numbers are 0.3% and 0.2% for the other age groups, respectively.
Gender and ethnicity also play a role, with 1.6% of girls and 0.9% of boys reporting persistent symptoms. Additionally, 1.9% of Hispanic children, 1.2% of White non-Hispanic, 0.6% of Black non-Hispanic, and 0.2% of Asian non-Hispanic children experienced long COVID.