While fatigue is the most commonly reported symptom among adult and pediatric long COVID-19 patients, physicians at Washington, D.C.-based Children's National Hospital have noticed another pattern in pediatric patients.
Speaking on how children's symptoms are different from adults, Alexandra Yonts, MD, an infectious disease specialist who runs the hospital's long COVID-19 clinic, told CBS News in a June 8 report, "Kids tend to have less respiratory complaints and more gastrointestinal symptoms."
Children's National Hospital is currently treating 70 long COVID-19 patients and is conducting a three-year study to learn more about the long-term effects children experience after a COVID-19 infection.
Dr. Yonts told CBS that studies vary widely in the proportion of children who experience lingering symptoms. She estimates it could be as high as 10 percent. There have been more than 13 million confirmed COVID-19 cases among U.S. children since the start of the pandemic, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.