The global COVID-19 epidemic is not optimistic. According to the WHO website, as of September 14, 2022, 607 million people have been infected with COVID-19 , with the death toll close to 6.5 million.
Not long ago WHO's article Life as a young person with long COVID: You go through so many phases of up and down, it’s like being on a rollercoaster forever said that as young people across Europe return to school, we talked with 16-year-old Katty McFarland about what happened after COVID-19, also known as long COVID, daily difficulties in life, and what measures can schools take to protect students from symptomatic problems.
March 2020, Katie was 14 years old and in good health. She likes ballet , surfing , running and pitching, and later she got COVID-19. She remembers only experiencing cough and flu fever, but her mother contracted COVID-19 around the same time, and she mentioned a horrible moment when her daughter became unresponsive. Fortunately, these serious symptoms subsided in a few days and her health seemed to improve. About 1 month later, some very mild exercises were tried, but Katie's relapse left her bedridden for the next 8 months.
Katie said: "I mainly felt dizzy and exhausted, I fainted many times, palpitations ; I might just sit there and my heart beats suddenly jumped to 190 beats per minute." She also developed gluten intolerance and acute abdominal pain , causing her to faint and need to be hospitalized several times.
Katie said: "Sometimes I need help to eat all the food; at other times, I can't hold up my cup because I'm too weak and used to the feeling of being strong and active, and now it's hard to accept." Visual impairment and brain fog meant that even watching TV or trying to text messages would make her feel nauseous and exhausted, during which time her father had to take care of Katie and her mother as they were all fighting the symptoms of COVID-19.
Unrecognized at the time
Unfortunately, in the early days of the pandemic, medical staff were unable to provide Katie and her mother with any answers to their health questions, as well as the advice they expected, just at the risk of making their condition worse.
Until today, Katie is still struggling due to the impact of the long-term COVID-19 pandemic. Katie said: "Sometimes I find it difficult to speak, my brain feels very blurry, I can't think of a word, I stutter often. Every day is different, sometimes I feel tired and dizzy, sometimes I feel brain fog, but I can tolerate the condition and walk around. Sometimes if I feel good, we can go out for a walk, but the next day I may be back in bed. After so many ups and downs, it's like riding a roller coaster forever."
Education interruption
Kitie's illness forced her to take a long break, online courses are challenging, and the pressure to try to complete the assignment leads to further relapse. When face-to-face education resumed, her health further deteriorated in response to her busy school days. Eventually, her family arranged for her home-education before the exam.
Katie said: "I asked an examiner to come to my house and it made the exam much easier. I could go back to bed as soon as I finished the exam, which was really helpful."
The way forward
Katie and her mother controlled their illness through medication and careful rhythm of activity, but they were frustrated by the lack of progress in understanding and identifying the condition. In addition to more scientific research on COVID-19, Katie hopes to provide more educational flexibility for young people with COVID-19 — for example, working with those experiencing fatigue and vision problems, to communicate face to face.
She also wants to see her peers and teachers understand this better, Katie said: "The kids will think, oh, I won't get infected. I'm younger and I have a better immune system. But that's not the case, my mom and I love exercise, we don't have any underlying health conditions.”
Her mother Sammy later founded the UK-based international charity Long COVID Kids, who expressed concerns about young people’s lack of awareness about the COVID-19 pandemic: “We have heard stories from many families about children returning to education after COVID-19, children are allergic or have persistent headaches, nausea or stomach upset, but their parents sent them back to school because they didn’t know it was COVID-19. These children are asked to continue their normal activities and have no time to rest. This is not the family’s fault, the problem is the lack of education and awareness. ”
In addition to calling on schools to adjust students with COVID-19, she is eager to see measures taken to improve air quality in educational institutions and wear masks more to prevent infection.
Sami said: “If we don’t do this, then our entire generation of children may be at risk of disability. We now see children develop into COVID-19 after reinfection, while they do not develop after the first, second or third infection. As the number of repeated infections increases, this is deeply worrying. Long COVID Kids has been calling for biomedical research and focusing on prevention. ”
Increases awareness, research and recovery of post-COVID-19 diseases and the long-term burden on health systems are only just beginning to become apparent, and studies show that approximately 10-20% of people infected with COVID-19 may experience symptoms that last for weeks, months, or even years after initial infection, with millions of people facing such risks worldwide.
To date, the post-COVID-19 situation in children and young people is not clear and more research is needed, especially in countries with limited resources to understand their clinical characteristics, frequency and risk factors that cause some adolescent populations to experience different conditions.
WHO/Europe is working with Long COVID Europe, a network of patients-led associations that have been collecting information about the condition and sharing with interested stakeholders since its inception last year.
WHO/Europe has also been working with patient groups to identify priority areas where action is needed, and now calls on governments and authorities to focus their attention on COVID-19 and their patients through greater efforts:
– Identification: All services must be adequately equipped and no patient should be left alone or have to work hard to cope.
– Research and Reporting: Research is needed for data collection and reporting of cases and well-coordinated studies with full participation of patients to promote understanding of the prevalence, causes and costs of COVID-19.
– Rehabilitation: This cost-effective intervention is an investment in rebuilding a healthy and productive society.
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