Akron Children's: 'Children COVID-19 cases on rise'

Since the pandemic started last March, about 2 million children have been infected with COVID-19. Locally, Akron Children's says they've seen a rise in cases in children.

Akron Children's says some weeks they see up to a quarter of those tested for the virus are positive.

"That's much higher than when we were running at 3-5%," said Robert McGregor, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Akron Children's Hospital. 

McGregor blames the rise in children's COVID-19 cases on the holiday season, which could lead to even more health issues for children.

"Now, we're finding evidence that patients may get COVID-19 and they're not very sick during the time they have COVID-19," McGregor said, "but several weeks later they get this immune response that could be deadly."

McGregor also mentioned what's known as Kawasaki disease, commonly found in children that still have antibodies from the virus. This new disease was not found during the first wave of the pandemic.

"Currently, we have five in the hospital now with it," McGregor said. "So what happens is, we have these symptoms, complex, that we recognize, and then we look back and see if they have antibodies that show they recently had the virus."

Symptoms of Kawasaki disease include fever, rash, organ system dysfunction, and shock.

"If their child develops an unusual illness, especially with a fever, and they should check in with their doctors, especially if they already know that they had COVID-19 several weeks ago," McGregor said. 

McGregor said reducing the community spread is the best way case numbers in children will go down.