By Lisa Schencker
At least 20 children in Illinois (click here) have come down with a rare but severe illness linked to COVID-19, placing Illinois among the top seven states in the country for the number of cases, according to a new federal report.
Illinois, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and California each had between 21 and 30 cases from March to July, according to an article recently released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts had more than 31 incidences each.
The illness — called multisystem inflammatory syndome in children, or MIS-C — can generally appear two to four weeks after the onset of COVID-19 in a child or adolescent. Symptoms can include a rash, fever, red eyes, swollen hands and feet, vomiting and abdominal pain. It’s an inflammatory illness, meaning the body’s immune system revs up and begins to attack healthy tissue.
Nationwide, 570 cases had been reported to the CDC as of July 29, by 40 state health departments, the District of Columbia and New York City. Among those cases, children stayed in the hospital for a median of six days; 364 children had to go to intensive care; and 10 children died.
Nearly all the 570 cases went to the PICU. 364 cases out of 570 have needed intensive care which means without it they could have died.
Illinois has reported 24 cases of the illness to the CDC, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. No children in Illinois have died of the sickness.
The illness has, so far, been affecting Black and Latino children more than white children — similar to how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected Black and Latino people. Of the 570 cases nationwide, 40.5% of the patients were Hispanic or Latino; 33.1% were Black; and 13.2% were white....
DO NOT SEND THE CHILDREN TO SCHOOL.
