Symptoms of COVID-19 in Kids

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:01 — 1.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Anchor lead: What should parents do if they suspect their children may have COVID-19? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Even though children may most often have milder symptoms of COVID-19 infection, as several studies have shown, parents should be on the lookout for more severe disease. That’s according to Rachel Thornton, a pediatrician at Johns Hopkins.

Thornton: Our general advice to parents is most of the symptoms of COVID-19 are things like cough, sore throat, fevers, body aches, sometimes GI upset or diarrhea. We consider a fever in a child a temperature of 100.4 or higher. If a parent is worried their child might have these symptoms and it might be COVID-19 we want them to call their pediatrician’s office first. The times when we would want them to take immediate action and seek medical care are if a child is having significant breathing problems.   :33

Thornton says that parents should always err on the side of increased vigilance if their child develops symptoms they find worrisome. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.