Children have started arriving at hospitals with a distinct set of symptoms during the pandemic.
The condition is rare — about 150 kids in New York City seem to have it, for example — and strange. Few patients test positive for COVID-19, and only some of them have trouble breathing, which has been a hallmark of those fighting a particularly bad COVID-19 infection. Instead, these young patients arrive feverish, rashy, nauseous and with a host of other less-visible symptoms that often resemble Kawasaki disease.
For the time being, physicians are calling this new condition Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). But the name has changed several times. “I think that highlights the kind of rapidly evolving situation we’re in,” says Kevin Friedman, a pediatric cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Nobody really knows what to call it.”
At least 200 U.S. cases have been reported, with more instances popping up across ...
