New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters Thursday that he still has no answers on whether day camps will be able to open this summer, and no answers for those trying to organize plans for overnight camps either, due to the COVID-19 pediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome that in the United States has been named “MIS-C” (Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome in Children).
The New York State Department of Health is currently investigating 157 cases of the illness, which seems to be linked to COVID-19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which also refers to the syndrome as MIS-C, has listed the illness on its website, but says openly, “CDC is still learning about MIS-C and how it affects children, so we don’t know why some children have gotten sick with MIS-C and others have not. We also do not know if children with certain health conditions are more likely to get MIS-C. These are among the many questions CDC is working to try to understand.” The agency said it is working with “US and international scientists, healthcare providers and other partners to learn more about this new syndrome . . . creating a system to track cases and providing guidance” to health care providers among others.
“We now starting to see that children are now developing these inflammatory symptoms; inflammation of the blood vessels, inflammation of the heart, but it’s quite serious and we’ve lost a number of children,” Cuomo said grimly.
“Last Thursday there were seven countries that also investigated and found cases; there were 17 states that also found cases. Today, there are 13 countries and 25 states.”
In North Carolina, the first case of MIS-C was reported this week by state health officials, according to a report by WBTV web staff, who included a photo of the symptomatic rash on a child’s torso. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has asked all health care providers to report suspected cases of the inflammatory syndrome to the department.
On May 15, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm issued a Rapid Risk Assessment alert on Paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome and SARS-CoV-2 infection in children, which said that “about 230 suspected cases of this new paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection (PIMS-TS) have been reported in EU/EEA countries and the UK in 2020, including two fatalities, one in the UK and one in France… to date, an association between SARS-CoV-2 infection and this new clinical entity of multisystem inflammation has not yet been established, although an association appears plausible.”
Information for parents on MIS-C and a list of its symptoms can be found by clicking here.
“This is one of those situations where the more they look I believe the more they are going to find. So when we’re talking about schools, again, facts have changed from the “experts” because there are no experts on this COVID virus – I’ve learned that the hard way,” Cuomo said.