No need to panic if child has mild COVID, say health experts

With COVID cases rising in children aged under 10 years since March, experts are asking parents to not panic if the child is asymptomatic or does not have a severe infection.

Some states including Mizoram and Kerala are reporting a rise in such paediatric cases and health experts have urged the states to ramp up arrangements in case a large number of children need hospitalisation.

News18 quoted Dr N.K. Arora, chairman of the COVID working group of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI), as saying that children are affected to the same extent as adults in India, as serosurveys across the nation have shown.

“If children are found positive for the coronavirus infection but are not symptomatic, then it is not a matter of concern,” he said. “The proportion of symptomatic cases in children is extremely low and risk of severe infection even more uncommon.”

Mizoram on Tuesday registered its highest-ever single-day spike in COVID cases as 1,502 more people, including 300 children, tested positive for the disease, pushing the state’s total number of cases to 72,883.

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Earlier, AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria had pointed out that most children who get COVID will be asymptomatic and have mild disease. He said increasing number of children catching COVID “is not a cause of great alarm” as it was bound to happen with ease in curbs and families travelling.

“This does not translate into a larger number of children getting admitted to hospitals or dying because of COVID. However, we need to be prepared for any eventuality, including more children requiring hospitalisation,” he reportedly said.

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