Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Children: Is It Really Mild?

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has spread rapidly to the world. The disease can vary from mild cases to severe respiratory distress; this may increase rapidly and overwhelm the pediatric intensive care units. Lately, there have been various reports about a de novo multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children or pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection. We classified the disease into 2 spectrums: the acute phase in severely ill patients and the postinflammatory phase. Neither of them could be classified as mild because there is enough evidence that supports a wide range of complications. The goals of this brief review were to summarize available literature and to give some awareness about the current status of the coronavirus disease 2019 in the severely ill patients during the active phase and postinflammatory phase.

Keywords: COVID-19; Kawasaki-like syndrome; SARS-CoV-2; multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children; pediatric complications.