Archive for coronavirus
Organized sports and COVID-19: Are we there yet?
After a long, challenging year, many student athletes have returned to play this spring with joy and relief. But, organized sports have been linked to COVID-19 outbreaks in several states. The CDC warns that those who play close-contact and inside sports are at very high risk of infection. Even as they relax mandates to wear ... Read More
Back to school… back to what?
This month, many children and teens in Massachusetts and around the country are finally heading back to school in person. For some kids this news might elicit jumps for joy, while others might feel nervous or afraid. Wherever you or your kids land on this range of feelings, there will no doubt be an emotional ... Read More
COVID-19 vaccines for kids: What has to happen first
Now that adults and older teens are receiving COVID-19 vaccines, some younger kids are wondering why they can’t get vaccinated too. While testing has begun in children 6 months to age 12, we aren’t ready to begin vaccinating most kids yet. But we do know the steps the companies are taking to be sure their ... Read More
Boston Children’s Simulator Program steps up during COVID-19
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals scrambled to adapt and prepare. Amid the chaos, the Boston Children’s Hospital Simulator Program, SIMPeds, sprang into action. SIMPeds is a world leader in running live simulations of care scenarios, allowing health care providers to rehearse tough or unanticipated situations in advance. Its SIMEngineering division is ... Read More
You’ve had the COVID-19 vaccine. What now?
As more and more people across the country get vaccinated for COVID-19, the rules for social distancing are also slowly shifting. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rolled out new guidelines for those who are fully vaccinated. But these rules can still be a bit confusing for families, especially when some family ... Read More
Sturdier spikes may explain SARS-CoV-2 variants’ faster spread
The fast-spreading U.K., South Africa, and Brazil variants are raising concerns and questions about whether current COVID-19 vaccines will protect against them. A structural biology study led by Bing Chen, PhD, at Boston Children’s Hospital now reveals how the D614G mutation — carried by all three variants — makes SARS-CoV-2 spread faster. Key takeaways: The main ... Read More
COVID-19: What we know and how to cope with an uncertain future
Last March, when the world as we knew it shut down because of the coronavirus, we imagined we’d be home for a few weeks at most. But here we are, a year later, still unsure when our lives might get back to “normal.” And it’s still unclear what a new normal might even look like. ... Read More
Neurological involvement common in kids and teens with acute COVID-19 and MIS-C
In the largest study of its kind, researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital found neurological involvement in 22 percent of children and adolescents hospitalized with acute COVID-19 or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C). These symptoms included fatigue, headache, confusion, difficulty walking or crawling, or loss of taste and smell. However, 1 in 8 children with ... Read More
If another pandemic hits, our online ‘footprints’ may help the experts
When the new coronavirus hit early last year, little was known about it. As people started coming to the emergency room, doctors scrambled to understand COVID-19 and its trajectory of symptoms. Testing was limited, and only over a period of months did the full fury of the new virus make itself known. Community after community ... Read More
New findings show risk of bleeding and clotting after COVID-19
A year after COVID-19 was first identified, we have some answers about how to prevent and treat this illness, but there are still many questions. Some of the unknowns include what longer-term effects COVID-19 infection may have on the heart and other systems in the body. One of the complications associated with COVID-19 infection is ... Read More